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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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THE    INVISIBLE    PLAYMATE 

AND 

W.  V.  HER   BOOK 


This  book,  for  the  publication  of  nvhich  I  am 
indebted  to  Messrs.  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company, 
contains  "The  Invisible  Playmate^''  and  "IV.  V., 
Her  Book,''''  re-vised,  enlarged,  and  in  the  defini- 
ti-ve  and  only  form  in  --ivhich  I  desire  to  offer  it  to 
the  good  ^will  of  the  American  people. 

WILLIAM  CANTON. 


"  Thank  you,  Mr.  Oakman ' 


THE 

Invisible  Playmate 


AND 


W.  V.  HER   BOOK 

BY 

WILLIAM    CANTON 

With  T^wo  Illustrations  by  C.  E.  Brock 


NEW    YORK 
DODD,  MEAD   AND    COMPANY 


M  DCCC  XCVIII 


Copyright^  i8qb, 
By  Stone  and  Kimball. 

Copyright,  i8g8, 
By  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 


HitibcrsttD  Prrss:' 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


^  4415" 


TO 


THE   MOTHER  OF   W.  V. 


April  26, 1897 


Contents 


The  Invisible  Playmate  .... 
Rhymes  about  a  Little  Woman 
An  Unknown  Child-Poem 
At  a  Wayside  Station     . 


W.  v.,  Her  Birthday    . 

Her  Book 

The  Inquisition 
The  First  Miracle 
By  the  Fireside.      I. 
By  the  Fireside.      II. 
The  Raider 
Babsie-Bird 
The  Orchard  of  Stars 
The  Sweet  Pea  . 
Brook-side  Logic    . 
Bubble-Blowing 
New  Version  of  an  Old  Game 
The  Golden  Swing-Boat  . 
Another  Newton's  Apple 
vii 


PAGE 

3 

29 

49 
65 

79 

103 
105 
107 
108 
IC9 
no 
112 
113 
J14 

115 
117 

118 
119 


Contents 

PAGE 

Naturula  Naturans 120 

Wings  and  Hands 121 

Flowers  Invisible 122 

Making  Pansies 123 

Heart-ease 124 

"  Si  j'avais  un  arpent  ■"     .      .      .      .  125 

Her  Friend  Littlejohn     ....  129 

Her  Bed-time 149 

Various  Verses 

East  of  Eden 159 

Goodwin  Sands 168 

Trafalgar 173 

Vignettes 

The  Wanderer.      1 179 

The  Wanderer.      II 180 

The  Scarecrow 182 

The  Haunted  Bridge 184 

The  Stone  Age 186 

Sea-Pictures.      1 188 

Sea-Pictures.      II 190 

Moonlight 152 

Green  Pastures 194 

The  Little  Dipper 196 

In  the  Hills 197 

Nature's  Magic 198 

April  Voices 199 

Green  Sky 204 

viii 


Contents 


Sub  Umbra  Crucis 
The  Shepherd  Beautiful 

The  Moss 

A  Carol 

When  Snow  Lies  Deep 
"  Trees  of  Righteousness  " 
The  Comrades    .      .      .      . 
"  Crying,  Abba,  Father"  . 
This  Grace  Vouchsafe  . 


PAGE 

207 

ZI  I 

212 
214 
216 

218 

221 
226 


iX 


THE    INVISIBLE 
PLAYMATE 


The  poor  lost  image  bro7ight  back  plain  as 

dreams. 

Browning 

No  visual  shade  of  some  one  lost. 

But  he,  the  Spirit  himself,  may  come 
When  all  the  nerve  of  sense  is  niwib. 

Tennyson 

God,  by  God's  ways  occult, 

May  —  doth,  I  -will  believe  — bring  back 

All  wanderers  to  a  single  track. 

Browning 


Vous  voyez  sous  mon  rire  mes  larmes, 
VIeux  arbres,  n'est-ce  pas  ?  et  vous  n'avez  pas  cru 
Que  i'oublierai  jamais  le  petit  disparu. 


THE   INVISIBLE    PLAYMATE 

THE  following  pages  are  taken  from  a 
series  of  letters  which  I  received  a 
year  or  two  ago ;  and  since  no  one  is  now 
left  to  be  affected  by  the  publication  of 
them  it  can  be  no  abuse  of  the  writer's 
confidence  to  employ  them  for  the  purpose 
I  have  in  view.  Only  by  such  extracts  can 
I  convey  any  clear  impression  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  person  most  concerned. 

To  many  the  chief  interest  in  what  follows 
will  centre  in  the  unconscious  self-portraiture 
of  the  writer.  Others  may  be  most  attracted 
by  the  frank  and  naive  picture  of  child-life. 
And  yet  a  third  class  of  readers  may  decide 
that  the  one  passage  of  any  real  value  is 
that  which  describes  the  incident  with  which 
the  record  closes.     On  these  matters,  how- 

3 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

ever,  any  comment  from  me  appears  to  be 
unnecessary. 

I  need  only  add  that  the  writer  of  the 
letters  was  twice  married,  and  that  just 
before  the  death  of  his  first  wife  their  only 
child,  a  girl,  died  at  the  age  of  six  weeks. 

"  I  never  could  understand  why  men 
should  be  so  insanely  set  on  their  first-born 
being  a  boy.  This  of  ours,  I  am  glad  to 
say,  is  a  girl.  I  should  have  been  pleased 
either  way,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  wanted 
a  girl.  I  don't  know  why,  but  somehow 
with  a  girl  one  feels  that  one  has  provided 
against  the  disillusionment,  the  discomfort, 
the  homelessness  of  old  age  and  of  mental 
and  physical  decrepitude. 

"For  one  thing  above  all  others  I  am 
grateful :  that,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  here- 
dity has  played  no  horrible  pranks  upon  us. 
The  poor  little  mortal  is  wholesome  and 
shapely  from  her  downy  little  poll  to  her 
little  pink  toe-nails.  She  could  not  have 
been  lovelier  if  Math  had  made  her  out 
of  flowers  (or  was  it  Gwydion?  You  re- 
member the  Mabinogion).     And  she  grips 

4 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

hard  enough  already  to  remind  one  of  her 
remote  arboreal  ancestors.  One  of  God's 
own  ape-lets  in  the  Tree  of  Life  ! " 

"  Exultant !  No,  dear  C — ,  anything  but 
that !  Glad  as  I  am,  I  am  morbidly  appre- 
hensive and  alert  to  a  myriad  possibilities 
of  misery.  I  am  all  quick.  I  feel  as  though 
I  had  shed  my  epidermis,  and  had  but  '  true 
skin '  for  every  breath  and  touch  of  mis- 
chance to  play  upon. 

"  /  have  been  through  it  all  before.  I  was 
exultant  then.  I  rode  a  bay  trotting-horse, 
and  was  proud  of  heart  and  wore  gloves  in 
my  cap.  I  feel  sick  at  heart  when  I  think 
how  I  was  wrapped  up  in  that  child ;  how 
in  my  idolatry  of  her  I  clean  forgot  the 
savage  irony  of  existence ;  how,  when  I  was 
most  unsuspecting,  most  unprepared  — 
unarmed,  naked  —  I  was  —  stabbed  from 
behind  ! 

"  I  know  what  you  will  say.  I  see  the 
grave  look  on  your  face  as  you  read  this. 
Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  write  it.  I  have 
never  said  so  much  to  any  one  before  \  but 
that  is  what  I  felt  —  what  I  feel. 

5 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

"  Do  you  think,  if  I  can  help  it,  I  shall 
give  any  one  a  chance  of  surprising  me 
so  again?  This  poor  little  mite  can  bring 
my  heart  with  a  leap  into  my  throat,  or  send 
it  down  shivering  into  my  boots  —  that  I 
can't  help  —  but  never  so  long  as  I  live, 
and  dote  on  her  as  I  may,  never  shall  I 
again  be  taken  at  unawares.  I  have  petri- 
fied myself  against  disaster.  Sometimes  as 
I  am  returning  home  in  the  grey  dawn, 
sometimes  even  when  I  am  putting  the 
latch-key  into  the  lock,  I  stop  and  hear  an 
inward  voice  whispering,  *  Baby  is  dead  ' ; 
and  I  reply,  '  Then  she  is  dead.'  The  rest 
I  suppress,  ignore,  refuse  to  feel  or  think. 
It  is  not  pleasant  schooling;  but  I  think 
it  is  wise." 

To  this  I  presume  I  must  have  replied 
with  the  usual  obvious  arguments,  for  he 
writes  later : 

"  No ;  I  dorCt  think  I  lose  more  than  I 
gain.  Trust  me,  I  take  all  I  can  get :  only, 
I  provide  against  reprisals.  Yes ;  unfortu- 
nately all  this  does  sound  like  Caliban  on 

6 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

Setebos.  Is  that  Caliban's  fault?  Dear 
man,  I  know  I  shock  you.  I  almost  shock 
myself;  but  how  can  /  trust  ?  Shall  I  bar- 
gain and  say,  '  You  took  the  other :  ensure 
me  this  one,  and  I  will  think  You  as  good 
and  wise  and  merciful  —  as  a  man  ?  '  And 
if  I  make  no  bargain,  but  simply  profess 
belief  that  '  all  was  for  the  best,'  will  that 
destroy  the  memory  of  all  that  horror  and 
anguish  ?  Job  !  The  author  of  '  Job '  knew 
more  about  astronomy  than  he  knew  about 
fatherhood. 

"  The  anguish  and  horror  were  perchance 
meant  for  my  chastening  !  Am  I  a  man  to 
be  chastened  in  that  way?  Or  will  you  say, 
perhaps  but  for  these  you  would  have  been 
a  lost  soul  by  this?  To  such  questionings 
there  is  no  end.  As  to  selfishness,  I  will 
suffer  anything  for  her  sake ;  but  how  will 
she  profit  by  my  suffering  for  the  loss  of 
her?" 

After  an  interval  he  wrote  : 

"You  are  very  good  to  take  so  much 
interest  in  the  Heiress  of  the  Ages.  We 
have    experienced    some    of    the    ordinary 

7 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

troubles  —  and  let  me  gravely  assure  you 
that  this  is  the  single  point  in  which  she 
does  resemble  other  children  —  but  she  is 
well  at  present  and  growing  visibly.  The 
Norse  god  who  heard  the  growing  of  the 
grass  and  of  the  wool  on  the  sheep's  back 
would  have  been  stunned  with  the  tinta- 
marre  of  her  development. 

"Thereto  she  noticeth.  So  saith  her 
mother;  so  averreth  the  nurse,  an  experi- 
enced and  unimpeachable  witness.  Think 
of  it,  C  !  As  the  human  mind  is  the  one 
reality  amid  phenomena,  this  young  person 
is  really  establishing  and  giving  permanence 
to  certain  bits  of  creation.  To  that  ex- 
tent the  universe  is  the  more  solid  on  her 
account. 

"  Nor  are  her  virtue  and  excellency  con- 
fined to  noticing ;  she  positively  radiates. 
Where  she  is,  that  is  the  sunny  side  of  the 
house.  I  am  no  longer  surprised  at  the 
folk-belief  about  the  passing  of  a  maiden 
making  the  fields  fertile.  I  observe  that 
in  the  sheltered  places  where  she  is  taken 
for  an  airing  the  temperature  is  the  more 
genial,  the  trees  are  in  greener  leaf,  and  the 

8 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

red  half  of  the  apple  is  that  nearest  the 
road.  .  .  . 

"  Accept  for  future  use  this  shrewd  dis- 
covery from  my  experience.  When  a  baby 
is  restless  and  fretful,  hold  its  hands  !  That 
steadies  it.  It  is  not  used  to  the  speed  at 
which  the  earth  revolves  and  the  solar 
system  whirls  towards  the  starry  aspect  of 
Hercules  (half  a  milhon  miles  a  day!).  Or 
it  may  be  that  coming  out  of  the  vortex  of 
atoms  it  is  sub-conscious  of  some  sense 
of  faUing  through  the  void.  The  gigantic 
paternal  hands  close  round  the  warm,  tiny, 
twitching  fists,  soft  as  grass  and  strong  as 
the  everlasting  hills. 

"  I  wonder  if  those  worthy  old  Accadians 
had  any  notion  of  this  when  they  prayed, 
'  Hold  Thou  my  hands.'  " 

In  several  subsequent  letters  he  refers 
to  the  growth  and  the  charming  ways  of 
the  "little  quadruped,"  the  " quadrunianous 
angel,"  the  "bishop"  (from  an  odd  resem- 
blance in  the  pose  of  the  head  to  the  late 
Bishop  of  Manchester).  One  passage  must 
be  given  : 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

"  It  is  an '  animal  most  gracious  and  benig- 
nant,' as  Francesca  calls  Dante.  Propped 
up  with  cushions,  she  will  sit  for  half  an 
hour  on  the  rug  at  my  feet  while  I  am  writ- 
ing, content  to  have  her  fluffy  head  patted 
at  the  end  of  every  second  paragraph. 

''This  evening  she  and  I  had  the  study 
to  ourselves.  She  on  my  knee,  cosily  snug- 
gling within  my  arm,  with  a  tiny  hand  clasped 
about  each  thumb.  We  were  sitting  by  the 
window,  and  the  western  sky  was  filled  with 
a  lovely  green  light,  which  died  out  very 
slowly.  It  was  the  strangest  and  dreamiest 
of  afterglows.  She  was  curiously  quiet  and 
contented.  As  she  sat  like  that,  my  mind 
went  back  to  that  old  life  of  mine,  that  past 
which  seems  so  many  centuries  away;  and 
I  remembered  how  that  poor  little  white 
creature  of  those  unforgettable  six  weeks  sat 
where  she  was  now  sitting  —  so  unlike  her, 
so  white  and  frail  and  old-womanish,  with 
her  wasted  arms  crossed  before  her,  and  her 
thin,  worn  face  fading,  fading,  fading  away 
into  the  everlasting  dark.  Why  does  —  how 
can  things  like  these  happen? 

"  She  would  have  been  nine  now  if  she 

lO 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

had  lived.     How  she  would  have  loved  this 
tiny  sister !  " 

"  You  will  be  amused,  perhaps  you  will  be 
amazed,  at  my  foolishness.  When  the  post- 
man hands  you  Rhyjnes  about  a  Little 
Woman  ^  you  will  understand  what  I  mean. 
In  trotting  up  and  down  with  the  Immortal 
in  my  arms,  crooning  her  to  sleep,  these 
rhymes  came.  I  did  not  make  them  !  And 
sing  —  don't  read  them.  Seriously,  the 
noticeable  thing  about  them  is  their  unlike- 
ness  to  fictitious  child-poems.  I  did  not 
print  them  on  that  account,  of  course.  But 
to  me  it  will  always  be  a  pleasant  thing  to 
see,  when  I  am  very,  very  old,  that  genuine 
bit  of  the  past.  And  I  like  to  fancy  that 
some  day  she  will  read  —  with  eyes  not  dry 
—  these  nonsense  verses  that  her  poor  old 
father  used  to  sing  to  her  in 

'  The  days  before 
God  shut  the  doorways  of  her  head.' " 

"You  remember  what  I  said  about  the 
child's  hands?     When   I  went  to  bed  very 

1  See  p.  27. 
II 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

late  last  night,  the  words,  'Hold  Thou  my 
hands/  kept  floating  about  in  my  mind,  and 
then  there  grew  on  me  the  most  perplexing 
half- recollection  of  a  lovely  air.  I  could  not 
remember  it  quite,  but  it  simply  haunted 
me.  Then,  somehow,  these  words  seemed 
to  grow  into  it  and  out  of  it : 

Hold  Thou  my  hands  ! 
In  grief  and  joy,  in  hope  and  fear, 
Lord,  let  xnQ/eel  that  Thou  art  near, 
Hold  Thou  my  hands  1 

If  e'er  by  doubts 

Of  Thy  good  fatherhood  depressed, 
I  cannot  find  in  Thee  my  rest. 
Hold  Thou  my  hands  1 

Hold  Thou  my  hands, — 
These  passionate  hands  too  quick  to  smite, 
These  hands  so  eager  for  delight, — 
Hold  Thou  my  hands ! 

And  when  at  length, 

With  darkened  eyes  and  fingers  cold, 
I  seek  some  last  loved  hand  to  hold, 
Hold  Thou  my  hands ! 

"  I  could  endure  it  no  longer,  so  I  woke 
N  [his  wife].  I  was  as  gentle,  gradual,  con- 
siderate as  possible  !  —  just  as   if  she  were 

12 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

waking  naturally.  And  she  re-mon-strat-ed  ! 
*  The  idea  of  waking  any  one  at  three  in  the 
morning  to  bother  about  a  tune  ! '  Dear, 
dear ! 

"  Well,  it  was  from  *  The  Yeoman  of  the 
Guard.'  You  will  know  where  by  the  rhythm 
and  refrain  ! " 

As  the  months  went  by  the  "  benign  an- 
thropoid "  developed  into  a  "  stodgy  volatile 
elephant  with  a  precarious  faculty  of  speech," 
and  her  father  affected  to  be  engrossed  in 
ethnological  and  linguistic  studies  based  on 
observation  of  her  experiments  in  life  and 
language.  I  now  extract  without  further 
interpolation,  merely  premising  that  frequent 
intervals  elapsed  between  the  writing  of  the 
various  passages,  and  that  they  themselves 
are  but  a  small  selection  from  many  similar : 


II' 


•  The  *  golden  ephelant '  is  unquestion- 
ably of  Early-English  origin.  Perpend :  we 
in  our  degeneracy  say  '  milk ' ;  she  pre- 
serves the  Anglo-Saxon  *  meolc'  Hengist 
and  Horsa  would  recognise  her  as  a  kins- 
woman.    Through   the   long  ages   between 

13 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

them  and  her,  the  pleasant  guttural  pronun- 
ciation of  the  ancient  pastures  has  been 
discarded  by  all  but  the  traditional  dairy- 
man, and  even  he  has  modified  the  o  into  u. 
Similarly  a  '  wheel '  is  a  '  hw^ol.'  But,  in- 
deed, she  is  more  A-S  than  the  Anglo- 
Saxons   themselves.     All   her  verbs  end  in 

*  en,'  even  *  I  am-en.'  " 

"  It  is  singularly  interesting  to  me  to  watch 
the  way  in  which  she  adapts  words  to  her 
purposes.  As  she  sits  so  much  on  our  knees, 
she  uses  *  knee  '  for  '  to  sit  down.'  To-day 
she  made  me  *  knee  '  in  the  arm-chair  beside 
her.  'Too  big'  expresses,  comically  enough 
sometimes,  all  kinds  of  impossibility.  She 
asked  me  to  play  one  of  her  favourite  tunes. 

*  Pappa  cannot,  dearie,'  *  Oh  ! '  — with  much 
surprise  —  ' Too  big?  '  " 

"  Oh,  man,  man,  what  wonderful  creatures 
these  bairnies  are  !  Did  it  ever  occur  to 
you  that  they  must  be  the  majority  of  the 
human  race?  The  men  and  women  com- 
bined may  be  about  as  numerous,  but  they 
must  far  outnumber  the  men  or  the  women 

14 


The   Invisible  Playmate 

taken  separately,  and  as  all  the  women  and 
most  of  the  men  —  bad  as  they  are  —  side 
with  them,  what  a  political  power  they  might 
be,  if  they  had  their  rights  !  I  have  been 
thinking  of  this  swarming  of  the  miniature 
people,  all  over  the  globe,  during  the  last  few 
days.  Could  one  but  make  a  poem  of  that! 
I  tried  —  and  failed.  *  Too  big  ! '  But  I  did 
the  next  best  thing  —  conceived  an  Unknown 
German  Child-poe^n,  and  —  what  think  you  ? 
—  reviewed  it.^  If  after  reading  it,  the 
'Astrologer'  [a  hypercritical  young  friend] 
tells  you  it  reminds  him  of  Carlyle,  just  ask 
him  whether  he  never,  neverheavd  of  Richter." 

"  She  delights  in  music  and  drawing.  It 
is  curious  how  sharp  she  is  to  recognise 
things.  She  picked  out  a  baby  in  a  picture 
the  other  day,  and  discovered  a  robin  among 
the  flowers  and  leaves  high  up  on  a  painted 
panel  of  the  mirror.  What  a  contrast  to  the 
grown  men  of  half-savage  tribes  one  reads 
of,  who  cannot  distinguish  a  house  from  a 
tree  in  a  drawing  !  She  has,  too,  quite  an 
extraordinary  ear  for  rhyme  and  rhythm.     I 

1  See  p.  47- 
15 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

find,  to  my  amazement,  that  she  can  fill  in 
the  rhymes  of  a  nonsense  poem  of  twenty 
lines  —  *  What  shall  we  do  to  be  rid  of  care  ? ' 
by  the  way  ^  —  and  when  she  does  not  know 
the  words  of  a  verse,  she  times  out  the  metre 
with  the  right  number  of  blanks. 

"  One  is  puzzled,  all  the  while,  to  know 
how  much  she  understands.  In  one  of  her 
rhymes  she  sings,  'Birds  are  singing  in  the 
bowers.'  The  other  day  as  she  was  chant- 
ing it  a  dog  went  by ;  '  That,  bowers  ! ' 
(bow-wows  !  )  she  cried  suddenly,  pointing 
to  the  dog." 

"  To-day  she  was  frightened  for  the  first 
time.  We  heard  her  roaring,  *No,  no,'  in 
great  wrath  in  the  garden.  A  sparrow  had 
dropped  on  the  grass  somewhere  near  her, 
and  she  was  stamping  and  waving  her  hands 
in  a  perfect  panic.  When  she  found  it  was 
not  to  be  driven  away,  she  came  sweeping 
in  like  a  little  elephant,  screaming  for  <  mam- 
ma '  to  take  up  arms  against  that  audacious 
'  dicken.'  It  was  really  ludicrous  to  see  her 
terrorised  by  that  handful  of  feathers. 

J  See  p.  33. 
16 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

"  Yet  she  is  not  a  bit  afraid  of  big  things. 
The  dog  in  the  kennel  barked  the  first  time 
she  went  near  him.  '  Oh  ! '  she  exclaimed, 
with  a  little  laugh  of  surprise,  *  coughing ! ' 
Now  she  says,  '  He  not  bark ;  only  say  good 
morning.'  She  must  kiss  the  donkey's  fore- 
head ;  she  invites  the  mother-hen  to  shake 
hands,  and  the  other  day  she  was  indignant 
that  I  would  not  hold  a  locomotive  till  she 
'  t'oked  it  dear  head.'  She  has  a  comfort- 
able notion  that  things  in  general  were  in- 
tended for  her.  If  she  wants  a  cow  or  a 
yoke  of  horses  with  the  ploughman  for  a  play- 
thing, it  is  but  to  *  ask  my  pappa  '  and  have. 
The  wind  and  the  rain  and  the  moon  *  walk- 
ing '  come  out  to  see  her,  and  the  flowers 
*wake  up'  with  the  same  laudable  object." 

"  Yes ;  a  child  has  a  civilising  effect.  I 
feel  that  I  am  less  of  a  bear  than  I  was.  It 
is  with  some  men  as  it  is  with  the  black- 
thorn ;  the  little  v^\\\\.q,  flower  comes  out  first, 
and  then  the  whole  gnarled  faggot  breaks 
into  leafy 

"  I  came  to-day  across  a  beautiful  little  bit 
from  the  letters  of  Marcus  Aurelius.     'On 

2  17 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

my  return  from  Lorium  I  found  my  little  lady 

—  dojfinulam  ineam  —  in  a  fever ; '  later  : 
'  You  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  our  little  one 
is  better  and  running  about  the  room.'  The 
old  Emperor  was  one  of  ourselves.  Indeed, 
look  at  his  face  in  those  marble  busts  in  the 
Museum  ;  he  might  have  been  a  man  of  our 
own  generation.  It  was  he,  I  remember, 
who  wrote,  *  One  prays  —  How  shall  I  not 
lose  my  little  son  ?  Do  thou  pray  thus  — 
How  shall  I  not  be  afraid  to  lose  him  ? '  Ah, 
how  shall  I  not  be  afraid  !  " 

"  We  have  had  our  first  walk  in  the  dark 

—  a  dark  crowded  with  stars.  She  had 
never  seen  it  before.  It  perplexed  her,  I 
think,  for  she  stood  and  looked  and  said 
nothing.  But  it  did  not  frighten  her  in  the 
least. 

"  I  want  her  to  have  some  one  marvellous 
thing  impressed  on  her  memory  —  some  one 
ineffable  recollection  of  childhood ;  and  it  is 
to  be  the  darkness  associated  with  shining 
stars  and  a  safe  feeling  that  her  father  took 
her  out  into  it.  This  is  to  last  all  through 
her  life  —  till  the    '  great    dark  '  comes  ;  so 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

that  when  it  does  come,  it  shall  be  with 
an  old  familiar  sense  of  fatherhood  and 
starlight. 

"  You  will  laugh  at  me  —  but  oh,  no ! 
you  will  not  laugh  —  when  I  tell  you  what  a 
horror  haunts  me  lest  I  should  die  before 
her  little  brain  has  been  stamped  with  a  vivid 
memory  of  me  —  clear  as  life,  never  to  be 
obliterated,  never  even  to  be  blurred.  Who 
was  it  named  Augustine  '  the  son  of  the  tears 
of  St.  Monica '  ?  This  child  might  well  be 
called  the  daughter  of  my  tears  —  yet  they 
have  not  been  bitter  ones. 

*'  When  she  did  speak  —  fluently  at  last  — 
it  was  to  suppose  that  a  good  many  pipes 
were  being  lit  up  in  the  celestial  spaces  ! 
This  was  both  prosy  and  impossible,  yet  what 
could  I  say?  Ah,  well !  some  day  she  shall 
learn  that  the  stars  are  not  vestas,  and  that 
the  dark  is  only  the  planetary  shadow  of  a 
great  rock  in  a  blue  and  weary  land  — 
though  little  cause  have  I  now  of  all  men  to 
call  it  weary  !  Has  that  notion  of  the  shadow 
ever  occurred  to  you?  And  do  you  ever 
think  of  night  on  one  of  the  small  planetoids, 
five    miles   in   diameter?      That    were    the 

19 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

shadow  of  a  mere  boulder ;  and  yet  on  that 
boulder,  though  there  can  be  neither  water 
nor  air  there,  what  if  there  were  some  un- 
known form  of  motherhood,  of  babyhood, 
curled  up  asleep  in  the  darkness? 

"  But  to  return  to  Pinaforifera.  Thinking 
these  stars  but  vestas  for  the  lighting  of  pipes, 
what  must  she  do  but  try  to  blow  them  out, 
as  she  blows  out  her  '  dad's ' !  I  checked 
that  at  once,  for  i'  faith  this  young  person's 
powers  are  too  miraculous  to  allow  of  any 
trifling  with  the  stellar  systems." 

"  I  fear  I  must  weary  you  with  these 
'  trivial  fond  records.'  Really  she  is  very  in- 
teresting. *  Ever  what  you  doing  ? '  '  Upon 
my  word  ! '  '  Dear  iccle  c'eature  ! '  *  Poor 
my  hands  ! '  —  just  as  people  used  to  say, 
'Good  my  lord!'" 

"What  heartless  little  wretches  they  are 
after  all !  Sometimes,  when  I  ask  her  for  a 
kiss,  she  puts  her  head  aside  and  coolly 
replies,  '  I  don't  want  to  ! '  What  can  you 
say  to  that?  One  must  respect  her  individ- 
uality, though  she  is  but  a  child.     Now  and 

20 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

again  she  has  her  tender  moments  :  *  I  shut-a 
door  and  leave  poor  you  ?  *  *  Yes,  you  did, 
dear.'  *  I  stay  with  you  ! '  —  which  means 
inexpressible  things.  You  should  see  the 
odd  coaxing  way  in  which  she  says,  'My 
father  !  '  Then  this  to  her  doll :  'You  cry? 
I  kiss  you.     You  not  cry  no  more.'  " 

"  Upon  my  life  I  am  growing  imbecile 
under  the  influence  of  this  Pinaforifera.  I 
met  a  very  old,  wrinkled,  wizened  little 
woman  to-day,  and  as  I  looked  at  her  poor 
dim  eyes  and  weathered  face,  it  flashed  upon 
me  like  an  inspiration  — '  And  she,  too,  was 
once  a  rosy,  merry  little  mortal  who  set  some 
poor  silly  dad  doting  1 '  Then  at  the  station 
I  came  across  what  seemed  to  me  quite  an 
incident  —  but,  there,  I  have  been  daft 
enough  to  write  the  matter  out  in  full,  and 
you  can  read  it,  if  paternity  and  its  muddle- 
headedness  do  not  fill  your  soul  with 
loathing."  ^ 

"  By  the  way,  she  has  got   a  new  play- 
thing.    I  do  not  know  what  suggested  the 
idea ;  I  don't  think  it  came  from  any  of  us. 
^  See  p.  63. 
21 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

Lately  she  has  taken  to  nursing  an  invisible 
*  iccle  gaal '  (little  girl)  whom  she  wheels 
about  in  her  toy  perambulator,  puts  care- 
fully to  bed,  and  generally  makes  much  of. 
This  is  —  'Yourn  iccle  baby,  pappa,  old 
man  1 '  if  you  please.  When  I  sit  down, 
this  accession  to  the  family  is  manifest  to 
her  on  my  right  knee ;  and  she  sits  on  my 
left  and  calls  it  a  '  nice  lovely  iccle  thing.' 
When  she  goes  to  bed  she  takes  Struw- 
welpeter,  Sambo  (a  sweet  being  in  black 
india-rubber),  and,  of  all  people,  Mrs. 
Grundy;  and  when  she  has  been  tucked 
in  she  makes  place  for  *  yourn  iccle  baby,' 
which,  of  course,  I  have  to  give  her  with 
due  care.  It  is  very  odd  to  see  her  put 
her  hands  together  for  it,  palms  upward,  and 
to  hear  her  assurance,  '  I  not  let  her  fall, 
pappa.'  " 

"  What  droll  little  brains  children  have  ! 
In  Struwwelpeter,  as  probably  you  are  not 
aware,  naughty  Frederick  hurts  his  leg,  and 
has  to  be  put  to  bed ;  and 

'  The  doctor  came  and  shook  his  head, 
And  gave  him  nasty  physic  too.' 
22 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

This  evening,  as  baby  was  prancing  about 
in  her  night-dress,  her  mother  told  her  she 
would  catch  cold,  and  then  she  would  be 
ill  and  would  have  to  be  put  to  bed.  'And 
will  the  doctor  come  and  shook  my  head  ?  ' 
she  asked  eagerly.  Of  course  we  laughed 
outright ;  but  the  young  person  was  right 
for  all  that.  If  the  doctor  was  to  do  any 
good,  it  could  not  conceivably  be  by  shak- 
ing his  own  head  !  " 

"I  told  you  about  her  invisible  play- 
mate. Both  N  [his  wife]  and  I  have  been 
wondering  whether  the  child  is  only  what 
is  called  making-believe,  or  whether  she 
really  sees  anything.  I  suppose  you  have 
read  Galton's  account  of  the  power  of  '  visu- 
alising,' as  he  calls  it;  that  is,  of  actually 
seeing  outside  of  one  the  appearance  of 
things  that  exist  only  in  imagination.  He 
says  somewhere  that  this  faculty  is  very 
strongly  developed  in  some  young  children, 
who  are  beset  for  years  with  the  difficulty 
of  distinguishing  between  the  objective  and 
the  subjective.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  one 
should  act  in  a  case  of  this  sort.     To  en- 

23 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

courage  her  in  this  amusement  might  lead 
to  some  morbid  mental  condition;  to  try 
to  suppress  it  might  be  equally  injurious,  for 
this  appears  to  be  a  natural  faculty,  not  a 
disease.     Let  nature  have  her  own  way? 

"  If  I  rest  my  foot  on  my  right  knee  to 
unlace  my  boot,  she  pulls  my  foot  away  — 
*  Pappa,  you  put  youm  foot  on  yourn  iccle 
baby.'  She  won't  sit  on  my  right  knee  at 
all  until  I  have  pretended  to  transfer  the 
playmate  to  the  other. 

"  This  girl  is  going  to  be  a  novelist.  We 
have  got  a  rival  to  the  great  Mrs.  Harris. 
She  has  invented  Mrs.  Briss.  No  one  knows 
who  Mrs.  Briss  is.  Sometimes  she  seems 
to  mean  herself;  at  other  times  it  is  clearly 
an  interesting  and  inscrutable  third  person." 

''The  poor  wee  ape  is  ill.  The  doctor 
doesn't  seem  to  understand  what  is  the 
matter  with  her.  We  must  wait  a  day  or 
two  for  some  development." 

"  How  these  ten  days  and  nights  have 
dragged  past !  Do  not  ask  me  about  her. 
I  cannot  write.     I  cannot  think." 

24 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

"  My  poor  darling  is  dead  !  I  hardly  know 
whether  I  am  myself  alive.  Half  of  my  indivi- 
duality has  left  me.     I  do  not  know  myself. 

"Can  you  behave  this?  /cannot;  and 
yet  I  saw  it.  A  little  while  before  she  died 
I  heard  her  speaking  in  an  almost  inaudible 
whisper.  I  knelt  down  and  leaned  over 
her.  She  looked  curiously  at  me  and  said 
faintly  :  *  Pappa,  I  not  let  her  fall.'  '  Who, 
dearie  ? '  '  Yourn  iccle  baby.  I  gotten  her 
in  here.'  She  moved  her  wasted  little  hand 
as  if  to  lift  a  fold  of  the  bed-clothes.  I 
raised  them  gently  for  her,  and  she  smiled 
like  her  old  self.     How  can  I  tell  the  rest  ? 

"  Close  beside  her  lay  that  other  little  one, 
with  its  white  worn  face  and  its  poor  arms 
crossed  in  that  old-womanish  fashion  in  front 
of  her.  Its  large,  suffering  eyes  looked  for 
a  moment  into  mine,  and  then  my  head 
seemed  filled  with  mist  and  my  ears  buzzed. 

"  /  saw  that.  It  was  not  hallucination.  It 
was  there. 

"  Just  think  what  it  means,  if  that  actually 
happened.  Think  what  must  have  been  go- 
ing on  in  the  past,  and  I  never  knew.  I  re- 
member, now,  she  never  called  it  '  mamma's 

25 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

baby  '  ;  it  was  always  '  yourn.'  Think  of 
the  future,  now  that  they  are  both  —  what  ? 
Gone? 

"  If  it  actually  happened  !  I  saw  it.  I 
am  sane,  strong,  in  sound  health.  I  saw 
it  —  saw  it  —  do  you  understand  ?  And 
yet  how  incredible  it  is  !  " 

Some  months  passed  before  I  heard  again 
from  my  friend.  In  his  subsequent  letters, 
which  grew  rarer  and  briefer  as  time  went 
on,  he  never  again  referred  to  his  loss  or  to 
the  incident  which  he  had  described. 

His  silence  was  singular,  for  he  was  natu- 
rally very  communicative.  But  what  most 
surprised  me  was  the  absolute  change  of 
character  that  seemed  to  have  been  brought 
about  in  an  instant  —  literally  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye.  One  glimpse  of  the  Unseen 
(as  he  called  it)  and  the  embittered  recollec- 
tions of  bereavement,  the  resentment,  the  dis- 
trust, the  spirit  of  revolt  were  all  swept  into 
oblivion.  Even  the  new  bereavement  had  no 
sting.  There  was  no  anguish;  there  were 
no  words  of  desolation.  The  man  simply 
stood  at  gaze,  stunned  with  amazement. 

26 


RHYMES    ABOUT    A 
LITTLE    WOMAN 


Seep.  II. 
27 


She  is  my  pride  ;  my  plague :  my  rest ;  my  rack : 

my  bliss ;  my  bane  : 
She  brings  me  sunshine  of  the  heart :  and  soft'ning 

of  the  brain. 


28 


RHYMES  ABOUT  A  LITTLE  WOMAN 


SHE 's  very,  very  beautiful ;  but  —  alas  !  — 
Is  n't  it  a  pity  that  her  eyes  are  glass  ? 
And  her  face  is  only  wax,  coloured  up,  you 

know; 
And  her  hair  is  just  a  fluff  of  very  fine  tow  ! 

No  !  —  she 's  not  a  doll.     That  will  never 

do  — 
Never,  never,  never,  for  it  is  not  true  ! 

Did  they  call  you  a  doll?    Did  they  say  that 

to  you  ? 
Oh,  your  eyes  are  little  heavens  of  an  earth 

made  new ; 

29 


The   Invisible  Playmate 

Your  face,  it  is  the  blossom  of  mortal  things ; 
Your  hair  might  be  the  down  from  an  angel's 
wings ! 

Oh,  yes ;  she  's  beauti-beautiful !      What 

else  could  she  be? 
God   meant   her   for   Himself  first    then 

gave  her  to  me. 


30 


II 


SHE  was  a  treasure ;  she  was  a  sweet ; 
She  was  the  darling  of  the  Army  and 
the  Fleet ! 

When  —  she  —  smiled 

The  crews  of  the  line-of-battle  ships  went 
wild  ! 

When  —  she  —  cried  — 
Whole  regiments   reversed   their  arms  and 
sighed  ! 

When  she  was  sick,  for  her  sake 
The  Queen  took  off  her  crown  and  sobbed 
as  if  her  heart  would  break. 


31 


Ill 


LOOK   at   her   shoulders  now  they  are 
bare; 
Are    there   any   signs   of    feathers   growing 
there  ? 

No,  not  a  trace ;  she  cannot  fly  away ; 
This  wingless  little  angel  has  been  sent  to 
stay. 


32 


IV 


w 


HAT  shall  we  do  to  be  rid  of  care  ? 

Pack  up  her  best  clothes  and  pay 
her  fare ; 


Pay  her  fare  and  let  her  go 
By  an  early  train  to  Jer-I-Cho. 

There  in  Judaea  she  will  be 
Slumbering  under  a  green  palm-tree  ; 

And   the    Arabs   of    the    Desert  will    come 

round 
When  they  see  her  lying  on  the  ground, 

And  some  will  say  "  Did  you  ever  see 
Such  a  remark-a-bil  babee?" 

3  33 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

And  others,  in  the  language  the  Arabs  use, 
"  Nous  n'  avons  jamais  vu  line  telle  papoose  J  " 

And  she  will  grow  and  grow  ;  and  then 
She  will  marry  a  chief  of  the  Desert  men  ; 

And  he  will  keep  her  from  heat  and  cold. 
And  deck  her  in  silk  and  satin  and  gold  — 

With  bangles  for  her  feet  and  jewels  for  her 

hair. 
And  other  articles  that  ladies  wear  ! 

So  pack  up  her  best  clothes,  and  let  her  go 
By  an  early  train  to  Jer-I-Cho  ! 

Pack  up  her  best  clothes,  and  pay  her  fare ; 
So  we  shall  be  rid  of  trouble  and  care  ! 


34 


TAKE  the  idol  to  her  shrine ; 
In  her  cradle  lay  her ! 
Worship  her  —  she  is  divine  ; 

Offer  up  your  prayer  ! 
She  will  bless  you,  bed  and  board, 
If  befittingly  adored. 


35 


VI 


o 


N  a  summer  morning,  Babsie  up  a  tree  ; 
In  came  a  Blackbird,  sat  on  Babsie 's 
knee. 


Babsie  to  Blaclibird  —  "  Blackbird,  how  you 

do?" 
Blackbird    to    Babsie  — "  Babsie,    how   was 

you? 

"  How  was  you  in  this  commodious  tree  — 
How  was^<?«  and  all  your  famu  —  ilu  —  ee  ?  " 


36 


VII 


THIS  is  the  way  the  ladies  ride  — 
Saddle-a-side,  saddle-a-side  ! 

This  is  the  way  the  gentlemen  ride  — 
Sitting  astride,  sitting  astride  ! 

This  is  the  way  the  grandmothers  ride  - 
Bundled  and  tied,  bundled  and  tied  ! 

This  is  the  way  the  babbykins  ride  — 
Snuggled  inside,  snuggled  inside  ! 

This  is  the  way,  when  they  are  late, 
They  all  fly  over  a  five-barred  gate  ! 


37 


VIII 


w 


E  are  not  wealthy ;  but,  you  see, 
Others  are  far  worse  off  than  we. 


Here  's  a  gaberlunzie  begging  at  the  door  — 
If  we  gave  him  Babs,  he  'd  need  no  more  ! 

Oh,  she  '11  fill  your  cup,  and  she  '11  fill  your 

can ; 
She  '11  make  you  happy,  happy  !     Take  her, 

beggar  man ! 

Give  a  beggar  Babsie  ?    Give  this  child  away  ? 
That  would  leave  iis  poor,  and  poor,  for  ever 
and  a  day ! 

38 


Rhymes  about  a  Little  Woman 
After- thought — 

The  gaberlunzie  man  is  sad  ; 

The  Babe  is  far  from  glee ; 
He  with  his  poverty  is  plagued  — 

And  with  her  poor  teeth  ^  she  ! 

1  As  who  should  say  "poortith." 


39 


IX 


OH,  where  have  you  been,  and  how  do 
you  do, 
And  what  did  you  beg,  or  borrow,  or  buy 
For  this  little  girl  with  the  sash  of  blue  ? 


Why, 
A  cushie-coo  ;  and  a  cockatoo ; 
And  a  cariboo  ;  and  a  kangaroo  ; 
And  a  croodlin'  doo ;  and  a  quag  from  the 

Zoo  — 
And  all  for  the  girl  with  the  sash  of  blue  ! 


40 


WHEN   she 's  very  thirsty,  what  does 
she  do? 
She  croons  to  us  in    Doric ;    she  murmurs 

"  A-coo  !  " 
Oh,  the   Uttle  Scotch  girl,   who  would  ever 

think 
She  'd  want  a  coo  —  a  whole  coo  —  needing 
but  a  drink ! 

Moo,  moo  !  —  a  coo  ! 

Mammie  's  gone  to  market ;  Mamraie  '11  soon 
be  here ; 

41 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

Mammie  's  bought  a  brindled  coo  !    Patience, 

woman  dear  ! 
Don't  you  hear  your  Crummie  lowing  in  the 

lane? 
She  's  going  up  to  pasture ;  we  '11  bring  her 

home  again  ! 

Moo,  moo  !  —  a  coo  ! 


Grow  sweet,  you  little  wild  flowers,  about  our 

Crummie  's  feet ; 
Be  glad,  you  green  and  patient  grass,  to  have 

our  Crummie  eat ; 
And  hasten,  Crummie,  hasten,  or  what  shall 

I  do? 
For  here  's  a  waesome  lassie  skirlin'  for  a  coo  ! 

Moo,  moo  !  — a  coo  ! 


A  moment  yet !     The  sun  is  set,  and  all  the 

lanes  are  red  ; 
And  here  is  Crummie  coming  to  the  milking 

shed  ! 


42 


Rhymes  about  a  Little  Woman 

Why,  mother,  mother,  don't  you  hear  this 

terrible  to-do? 
Depechez-vous  !  A  coo  —  a  coo  —  a  kingdom 

for  a  coo  ! 

Moo,  moo  !  —  a  coo  ! 


43 


XI 


WHEN  she  laughs  and  waves  about 
Her  pink   small  fingers,   who  can 
doubt 
She  's  catching  at  the  glittering  plumes 
Of  angels  flying  round  the  rooms  ? 


44 


XII 


POOR  Babbles  is  dead  with  sleep ; 
Poor  Babbles  is  dead  with  sleep  ! 
Eyes  she  hardly  can  open  keep ; 
Lower  the  gas  to  a  glimmering  peep. 
All  good  angels,  hover  and  keep 
Watch  above  her  —  poor  Babbles  !  —  asleep. 


45 


AN  UNKNOWN 
CHILD-POEM 


See  p.  15. 
47 


Murmure  indistinct,  vague,  obscur,  confus,  brouille : 
Dieu,  le  bon  vieux  grand-pere,  ecoute  emerveille. 

Hugo 


48 


AN    UNKNOWN    CHILD-POEM 

OF  all  possible  books  in  this  age  of 
waste-paper,  the  wretched  little  vol- 
ume before  me,  labelled  Gedichte  and  bear- 
ing the  name  of  a  certain  "  Arm  :  Altegans," 
is  assuredly  one  of  the  unluckiest.  Outside 
the  Fatherland  it  cannot  by  any  chance  be 
known  to  mortal ;  and  among  the  author's 
compatriots  I  have  been  unable  to  discover 
man,  woman,  or  child  who  has  heard  of 
Altegans,  or  is  aware  of  the  existence  of 
these  Poefns  of  his.  Yet  I  venture  to  express 
the  opinion  that  this  scarecrow  of  a  duo- 
decimo, with  its  worn-out  village  printer's 
type  and  its  dingy  paper-bag  pages,  contains 
some  passages  which  for  suggestiveness  and 
for  melody  of  expression  are  not  unworthy  of 
the  exquisite  "  founts  "  and  hand-made  papers 
of  wealthier   and,   perhaps,   less   noticeable 


smgers. 


49 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

Thin  as  the  book  is,  it  contains,  as  most 
books  do,  more  than  one  cares  to  read ;  but 
even  some  of  this  superfluous  material  is  in 
a  measure  redeemed  by  its  personal  bearing. 
One  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  man,  and  after 
reading  his  "  Erster  Schulgang  "  —  the  one 
real  poem  in  the  collection  —  I  must  confess 
that  I  felt  some  little  curiosity  and  interest  in 
regard  to  the  author.  One  learns,  for  instance, 
that  in  1868,  when  the  book  was  printed, 
he  was  a  winter-green  "  hoary-head  "  ;  that 
he  had  lost  wife  and  child  long  ago,  in  "  the 
years  still  touched  with  morning- red  "  ;  that 
like  Hans  Sachs,  he  had  — 

"  bending  o'er  his  leather, 
Made  many  a  song  and  shoe  together,"  — 

the  shoe  better  than  the  song,  but,  he  adds 
whimsically,  "  better  perchance  because  of 
the  song  "  ;  that  he  thought  no  place  in  the 
earth- round  could  compare  with  his  beloved 
village  of  Wieheisstes  in  the  pleasant  crag- 
and-fir  region  of  Schlaraffenland  ("  Glad  am 
I  to  have  been  born  in  thee,  thou  heart's- 
dearest  village  among  the  pines  "  ;  and  here, 
by  the  way,  have  we  not  a  reminiscence  of 

5° 


An  Unknown   Child-Poem 

Jean  Paul,  or  is  the  phrase  merely  a  coinci- 
dence?) ;  that  as  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
he  had  never  during  his  seventy  odd  years 
travelled  as  many  miles  as  ten  from  his 
Wieheisstes ;  that  though  confined  in  a  mere 
nut-shell  of  a  green  valley  he  was  a  cos- 
mopolite of  infinite  space ;  that  his  heart 
brimmed  over  with  brotherly  love  for  all 
men  —  for  all  women  especially,  and  still 
more  especially,  poor  hoary- head  !  for  all 
children  ;  but  truly  for  all  men  —  regarding 
even  the  levity  with  which  they  treated  his 
name  rather  as  a  token  of  affectionate  famil- 
iarity than  as  an  evidence  of  ill-breeding, 
and,  indeed,  humorously  addressing  himself 
in  more  than  one  of  the  gedichte  as  "  thou 
Old- Goose."  Which  last  play  of  fancy  has 
caused  me  to  question  —  without,  alas !  hope 
of  answer  now  —  whether  the  abbreviated 
prenomen  on  the  title-page  stands  for  a  he- 
roic "  Arminius  "  or  for  an  ironical  "  Armer  " 
or  "  Arme,"  as  one  prefers  the  gender ;  giv- 
ing us  the  net  result  "  Poor  Old-Goose  !  " 

Twenty  years  and  more  have  elapsed  since 
the  aged  worker  in  leather  and  verse  gave 
the    **  Erster    Schulgang  "  —  "  First   day  at 

£1 


The   Invisible   Playmate 

School,"  shall  we  say?  —  and  these  per- 
sonal confidences  to  an  apathetic  Germania. 
Doubtless  he  has,  long  since,  been  gathered 
to  his  lost  ones  in  the  shadow  of  the  grey- 
stone  blue-slated  little  church.  Poor  sing- 
ing soul,  he  is  deaf  to  anything  that  com- 
patriot or  "  speech-cousin  "  can  say  now 
of  him  or  of  his  rhymes  ! 

Let  me,  nevertheless,  attempt  to  make 
an  impressioniste  transcript  of  this  "  Erster 
Schulgang."  To  reproduce  the  tender,  sim- 
ple music  of  its  verse  would  be  impossible  ; 
a  mere  prose  translation  would  be  indeed 
a  —  traduction. 

The  poem  opens  with  a  wonderful  vision 
of  children  ;  delightful  as  it  is  unexpected ; 
as  romantic  in  presentment  as  it  is  common- 
place in  fact.  All  over  the  world  —  and 
all  under  it,  too,  when  their  time  comes  — 
the  children  are  trooping  to  school.  The 
great  globe  swings  round  out  of  the  dark 
into  the  sun ;  there  is  always  morning  some- 
where ;  and  for  ever  in  this  shifting  iregion 
of  the  morning-light  the  good  Altegans  sees 
the  little  ones  afoot  —  shining  companies 
and  groups,  couples  and  bright   solitary  fig- 

52 


An  Unknown  Child-Poem 

ures ;  for  they  all  seem  to  have  a  soft 
heavenly  light  about  them  ! 

He  sees  them  in  country  lanes  and  rustic 
villages ;  on  lonely  moorlands,  where  narrow 
brown  foot-tracks  thread  the  expanse  of 
green  waste,  and  occasionally  a  hawk  hovers 
overhead,  or  a  mountain-ash  hangs  its  scarlet 
berries  above  the  huge  fallen  stones  set  up 
by  the  Druids  in  the  old  days ;  he  sees 
them  on  the  hillsides  ('*  trails  of  little  feet 
darkening  the  grass  all  hoary  with  dew," 
he  observes),  in  the  woods,  on  the  stepping- 
stones  that  cross  the  brook  in  the  glen,  along 
the  sea-cliffs  and  on  the  wet  ribbed  sands ; 
trespassing  on  the  railway  lines,  making 
short  cuts  through  the  corn,  sitting  in  ferry- 
boats ;  he  sees  them  in  the  crowded  streets 
of  smoky  cities,  in  small  rocky  islands,  in 
places  far  inland  where  the  sea  is  known 
only  as  a  strange  tradition. 

The  morning-side  of  the  planet  is  alive 
with  them;  one  hears  their  pattering  foot- 
steps everywhere.  And  as  the  vast  conti- 
nents sweep  "  eastering  out  of  the  high 
shadow  which  reaches  beyond  the  moon" 
(here,  again,   I  would   have    suspected   our 

53 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

poet  of  an  unconscious  reminiscence  of  Jean 
Paul,  were  it  not  that  I  remember  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  has  some  similar  whimsical 
phrase),  and  as  new  nations,  with  their  cities 
and  villages,  their  fields,  woods,  mountains 
and  sea-shores,  rise  up  into  the  morning- 
side,  lo  !  fresh  troops,  and  still  fresh  troops, 
and  yet  again  fresh  troops  of  "  these  small 
school-going  people  of  the  dawn  ! " 

How  the  quaint  old  man  loves  to  linger 
over  this  radiant  swarming  of  young  life  ! 
He  pauses  for  a  moment  to  notice  this  or 
that  group,  or  even  some  single  mite. 
He  marks  their  various  nationalities  —  the 
curious  little  faces  of  them,  as  the  revolving 
planet  shows  him  (here  he  remembers  with 
a  smile  the  coloured  wall- maps  of  the  school- 
room) the  red  expanse  of  Europe,  the  green 
bulk  of  America,  or  the  huge  yellow  terri- 
tory of  the  Asiatics.  He  runs  off  in  a 
discursive  stanza  in  company  with  the 
bird-nesting  truant.  Like  a  Greek  divinity 
leaning  out  of  Olympus,  he  watches  a  pitched 
battle  between  bands  of  these  diminutive 
Stone-age  savages  belonging  to  rival  schools. 
With    tender    humour   he    notes     the    rosy 

54 


An   Unknown  Child-Poem 

beginning  of  a  childish  love-idyll  between 
some  small  Amazon  and  a  smaller  urchin 
whom  she  has  taken  under  her  protection. 
What  are  weather  and  season  to  this 
incessant  panorama  of  childhood?  The 
pigmy  people  trudge  through  the  snow  on 
moor  and  hillside ;  wade  down  flooded 
roads;  are  not  to  be  daunted  by  wind  or 
rain,  frost  or  the  white  smother  of  "  millers 
and  bakers  at  fisticuffs."  Most  beautiful 
picture  of  all,  he  sees  them  travelling  school- 
ward  by  that  late  moonlight  which  now  and 
again  in  the  winter  months  precedes  the 
tardy  dawn. 

Had  the  "Erster  Schulgang"  ended  here, 
I  cannot  but  think  the  poem  would  have 
been  worth  preserving.  This  vision,  how- 
ever, is  but  a  prelude  and  as  a  prelude  it  is 
perhaps  disproportionately  long.  A  blue- 
eyed,  flaxen-haired  German  madchen  of 
four  is  the  heroine  of  this  "  First  day  at 
School  "  —  Altegans's  own  little  maiden,  per- 
chance, in  the  years  that  were ;  but  of  this 
there  is  no  evidence. 

What  an  eventful  day  in  each  one's  life, 

55 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

he  moralises,  is  this  first  day  at  school  — 
no  other  day  more  truly  momentous;  and 
yet  how  few  of  us  have  any  recollection 
of  it! 

The  first  school-going  is  the  most  daring 
of  all  adventures,  the  most  romantic  of  all 
marvellous  quests.  Palseocrystic  voyages, 
searches  for  northwest  passages,  wanderings 
in  the  dwarf-peopled  forests  of  dusky  con- 
tinents are  trifling  matters  compared  with 
this.  This  is  the  veritable  quest  for  the  San- 
greal !  *'  Each  smallest  lad  as  he  crosses  the 
home-threshold  that  morning  is  a  Colum- 
bus steering  to  a  new  world,  to  golden 
Indies  that  truly  lie  —  at  last  —  beyond  the 
sunset.  He  is  a  little  Ulysses  outward- 
bound  on  a  long  voyage,  wherethrough  help 
him,  thou  dear  Heaven,  past  the  Calyp- 
so Isles  and  Harpy-shores  lest  he  perish 
miserably !  " 

And  thus,  continues  Altegans,  after  a 
page  or  two  of  such  simple  philosophising, 
little  "  blue-eyed  flax-head  "  goes  forth,  with 
well-stored  satchel  and  primer,  and  with  a 
mother's  kiss  ;  gleeful,  it  may  be  ;  reluctant, 
perchance ;    into    the   world,    nay   into   the 

56 


An  Unknown  Child-Poem 

universe,  nay  into  the  ilUmitable  cosmos 
beyond  these  flaming  star-walls ;  for  of  all 
future  knowing  and  loving,  and  serving  and 
revolt  against  service,  is  not  this  the  actual 
beginning  ? 

Very  prettily  does  he  picture  the  trot  of 
the  small  feet  along  the  narrow  pathway 
through  the  fields  where  the  old  Adam  — 
the  "  red  earth  "  of  the  furrows,  he  means  — 
is  still  visible  through  the  soft  green  blades 
of  the  spring  corn ;  the  walk  along  the 
lanes  with  their  high  hedges,  and  banks  of 
wild  flowers,  and  overhanging  clouds  of  leaf 
and  blossom ;  the  arrival  at  the  nistic 
schoolhouse ;  the  crowd  of  strange  faces ; 
the  buzz  and  noise  of  conning  and  repetition. 

And  then,  behold  !  as  the  timid  new 
scholar  sits  on  the  well-polished  bench,  now 
glancing  about  at  her  unknown  comrades, 
now  trying  to  recollect  the  names  and 
shapes  of  the  letters  in  her  primer,  the 
schoolhouse  vanishes  into  transparent  air, 
and  the  good  Altegans  perceives  that  this 
little  maiden  is  no  longer  sitting  among 
German  fields  ! 

Instead  of  the  young  corn,  papyrus-reeds 

57 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

are  growing  tall  and  thick ;  the  palm  has 
replaced  the  northern  pine ;  Nilus,  that 
ancient  river,  is  flowing  past;  far  away  in 
the  distance  he  descries  the  peaks  of  the 
Pyramids,  while  behind  the  child  rises  a 
huge  granite  obelisk  sculptured  from  apex 
to  base  with  hieroglyphic  characters.  For, 
he  asks  by  way  of  explaining  this  startling 
dissolving  view,  does  not  every  child  when 
it  learns  the  alphabet  sit  in  the  shadow 
of  the  sculptured  "  needle-pillars  "  of  Egypt 
the  ancient? 

Where  could  this  simple  village  shoemaker 
have  picked  up  this  crumb  of  knowledge? 
It  seems  only  yesterday  that  Professor  Max 
Miiller  thought  it  a  matter  of  sufficient 
novelty  to  tell  us  that  "  whenever  we  wrote 
an  a  or  a  ^  or  a  r,  we  wrote  what  was 
originally  a  hieroglyphic  picture.  Our  L  is 
the  crouching  lion ;  our  F  the  cerastes,  a 
serpent  with  two  horns ;  our  H  the  Egyptian 
picture  of  a  sieve." 

"O  thou  tenderest  newly- blossomed  little 
soul-and-body,  thou  freshest-formed  flower- 
image    of    man,"    exclaims    the    emotional 

58 


An   Unknown   Child-Poem 

Altegans,  "how  strange  to  see  thee  shining 
with  this  newness  in  the  shadow  of  the  old, 
old  brain-travail,  the  old,  old  wisdom  of  a 
world  dead  and  buried  centuries  ago;  how 
strange  to  see  thee,  thou  tiny  prospective 
ancestress,  struggling  with  the  omnipotent 
tradition  of  antiquity  ! 

"  For,  of  a  truth,  of  all  things  in  this 
world-round  there  is  nothing  more  marvel- 
lous than  those  carven  characters,  than  the 
many-vocabled  colonies  which  have  de- 
scended from  them,  and  which  have  peopled 
the  earth  with  so  much  speech  and  thought, 
so  much  joy  and  sorrow,  so  much  hope  and 
despair. 

"Beware  of  these,  thou  little  child,  for 
they  are  strong  to  kill  and  strong  to  save  ! 
Verily,  they  are  living  things,  stronger  than 
powers  and  principalities.  When  Moses 
dropped  the  stone  tablets,  the  wise  Rabbis 
say  the  letters  flew  to  and  fro  in  the  air; 
the  visible  form  alone  was  broken,  but  the 
divine  law  remains  intact  for  ever.  They 
are,  indeed,  alive  —  they  are  the  visible 
shapes  of  what  thou  canst  not  see,  of  what 
can  never  die. 

59 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

"  Heed  well  these  strong  ones  —  Aleph 
the  Ox,  the  golden  cherub  whose  mighty 
wings  spread  athwart  the  Temple  of  Solomon, 
the  winged  bull  that  men  worshipped  in 
Assyria ;  him  and  all  his  fellows  heed  thou 
carefully  !  They  are  the  lords  of  the  earth, 
the  tyrants  of  the  souls  of  men.  No  one  can 
escape  them  save  him  alone  who  hath  mas- 
tered them.  He  whom  they  master  is  lost, 
for  *  the  letter  killeth.'  But  these  things 
thou  dost  not  yet  understand." 

"  Close  now  thy  book,  little  learner.  How 
Socrates  and  Solomon  would  have  marvelled 
to  hear  the  things  that  thou  shalt  learn  ! 
Close  thy  book ;  clap  thy  hands  gladly  on 
the  outgoing  {Scoitice  skaling)  song ;  hie 
thee  home  !  Thy  dear  mother  awaits  thee, 
and  thy  good  grey  grandfather  will  look  down 
on  thee  with  shrewd  and  kindly  eyes,  and 
question  thee  gaily.  Run  home,  thou  guile- 
less scholarling ;  thy  mother's  hands  are  fain 
of  thee." 

A  little  abruptly  perhaps,  unless  we  recol- 
lect that  half  is  greater  than  the  whole,  the 

60 


An   Unknown   Child-Poem 

simple  poet  flies  off  at  a  tangent  from  his 
theme,  and  muses  to  his  own  heart : 

"  And  we,  too,  are  children  ;  this,  our  first 
long  day  at  school.  Oh,  gentle  hand,  be 
fain  for  us  when  we  come  home  at  eventide  ; 
question  us  tenderly,  Thou  good  Father, 
Thou  ancient  One  of  days." 

So  the  "  Erster  Schulgang  "  closes. 

It  may  be  that  through  temperament  or 
personal  associations  I  have  over-valued  it. 
The  reader  must  judge.  In  any  case,  you 
dead,  unknown,  gentle-hearted  Old-Goose, 
it  has  been  a  pleasant  task  to  me  to  visit  in 
fancy  your  beloved  village  of  Wieheisstes  in 
the  romantic  crag-and-fir  region  of  Schlaraf- 
fenland,  and  to  write  these  pages  about  your 
poem  and  yourself. 


6i 


AT   A    WAYSIDE 
STATION 


See  p.  21. 


63 


■ 

I 


L'adorable  hasard  d'etre  pere  est  tombe 
Sur  ma  tete,  et  m'a  fait  una  douce  felure. 

Hugo 


64 


I 


AT   A   WAYSIDE   STATION 

GOOD-BYE,  my  darling  !  " 
The  voice  shot  out  cheerily  from 
the  window  of  a  second-class  carriage  at  a 
small  suburban  station.  The  speaker  evi- 
dently did  not  care  a  pin  who  heard  him. 
He  was  a  bustling,  rubicund,  white-whiskered 
and  white-waistcoated  little  man  of  about 
sixty.  As  I  glanced  in  his  direction  I  saw 
that  his  wife  —  a  faded  blue-eyed  woman, 
with  a  genius  for  reserve  —  was  placidly 
settling  herself  in  her  seat. 

Perception  of  these  details  was  instan- 
taneous. 

"  Good-bye,  my  darling  !  " 

"  Good-bye,  papa  !  " 

The  reply,  in  a  clear,  fresh  voice,  was 
almost  startling  in  its  promptitude. 

I  looked  round ;  and  then  for  the  next 
minute  and  a  half,  I  laughed  quietly  to 
myself. 

5  65 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

For,  first  of  all,  the  bright  little  girl,  the 
flower  of  the  flock,  the  small,  radiant  beauty 
to  whom  that  voice  should  have  belonged, 
was  a  maiden  of  five  and  thirty,  hopelessly 
uncomely,  and  irredeemably  high-coloured. 

The  unmistakable  age,  the  unprepossessing 
appearance,  were  thrown  into  ludicrous  con- 
trast by  the  girlish  coyness  and  bashfulness 
of  her  demeanour.  When  her  eyes  were  not 
raised  to  her  father's  face,  they  were  cast 
down  with  a  demureness  that  was  altogether 
irresistible. 

The  little  man  mopped  his  bald  scalp, 
hurriedly  arranged  some  of  his  belongings 
in  the  rack,  abruptly  darted  out  another  bird- 
like look,  and  repeated  his  farewell. 

"  Good-bye,  my  darling  !  " 

"  Good-bye,  papa  !  " 

It  was  as  though  he  had  touched  the 
spring  of  a  dutiful  automaton. 

The  carriage  doors  were  slammed,  the 
guard  whistled,  the  driver  signalled,  the  train 
started. 

"  Good-bye,  my  darling  !  " 

"  Good-bye,  papa  !  " 

Comic  as  the  whole  scene  was,  its  conclu- 
66 


At  a  Wayside  Station 

sion  was  a  relief.  One  felt  that  if  "  Good- 
bye, my  darling,"  had  been  repeated  a 
hundred  times,  "Good-bye,  papa,"  would 
have  been  sprung  out  in  response  with  the 
same  prompt,  pleasant  inflection,  the  same 
bright,  ridiculous,  mechanical  precision. 

She  tripped,  with  the  vivacity  of  coquettish 
maidenhood,  for  a  few  paces  along  the  plat- 
form beside  the  carriage  window,  stood  still 
a  moment,  watching  the  carriages  as  they 
swept  round  the  curve,  and  then,  resuming 
her  air  of  unapproachable  reserve,  ascended 
the  station  steps. 

The  reaction  was  as  sudden  as  it  was 
unexpected.  The  ripple  of  her  white  muslin 
dress  had  scarcely  vanished  before  I  felt 
both  ashamed  and  sorry  that  I  had  been  so 
much  amused.  The  whole  situation  assumed 
a  different  aspect,  and  I  acknowledged  with 
remorse  that  I  had  been  a  cruel  and  despic- 
able onlooker.  The  humor  of  the  incident 
had  mastered  me ;  th.e  pathos  of  it  now 
stared  me  in  the  face. 

As  I  thought  of  her  unpleasing  colour, 
of  her  ineligible  uncomeliness,  of  her  five 
and  thirty  unmarried  years,  I  wondered  how 

67 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

I  could  have  ever  had  the  heart  to  laugh  at 
what  might  well  have  been  a  cause  for  tears. 

The  pity  of  it !  That  sweet  fresh  voice  — 
and  it  was  singularly  sweet  and  fresh  — 
seemed  the  one  charm  left  of  the  years  of 
a  woman's  charms  and  a  woman's  chances. 
The  harmless  prim  ways  and  little  coy  tricks 
of  manner,  so  old-fashioned  and  out  of  place, 
seemed  to  belong  to  the  epoch  of  powder 
and  patches.  They  were  irrefutable  evidence 
of  the  seclusion  in  which  she  had  lived  —  of 
the  Httle  world  of  home  which  had  never 
been  invaded  by  any  rash,  handsome,  self- 
confident  young  man. 

As  I  thought  of  the  garrulous  pride  and 
affection  of  her  father,  I  knew  that  she  must 
be  womanly  and  lovable  in  a  thousand  ways 
which  a  stranger  could  not  guess  at.  If  no 
one  else  in  the  world  had  any  need  of  her, 
she  was  at  least  his  darling ;  but,  ah  !  the  pity 
of  the  unfulfilled  mission,  of  the  beautiful 
possibilities  unrealised,  of  the  honour  and 
holiness  of  motherhood  denied.  She  would 
never  have  any  little  being  to  call  "  her 
darling,"  to  rear  in  love  and  sorrow,  in  solici- 
tude and  joy ;  never  one  even  to  lose 

68 


At  a  Wayside  Station 

"  When  God  draws  a  new  angel  so 
Through  a  house  of  a  man  up  to  His," 

—  to  lose  and  yet  know  it  is  not  lost,  to 
surrender  and  yet  feel  it  is  safe  for  ever ;  pre- 
served beyond  change  and  the  estrangement 
of  the  years  and  the  sad  transformations  of 
temperament — a  sinless  babe  for  evermore., 

"  Good-bye,  my  darling  !  " 

How  strangely,  how  tranquilly,  with  what 
little  sense  of  change  must  the  years  have 
gone  by  for  father  and  daughter  !  One  could 
not  but  conjecture  whether  he  saw  her  now 
as  she  actually  appeared  in  my  eyes,  or 
whether  she  was  still  to  him  the  small,  inex- 
pressibly lovely  creature  of  thirty  years  ago. 
Love  plays  curious  tricks  with  our  senses. 
No  man  ever  yet  married  an  ugly  woman, 
and  time  is  slow  to  wrinkle  a  beloved  face. 
To  him,  doubtless,  she  was  yet  a  child,  and 
at  forty  or  fifty  she  would  be  a  child  still. 

Then  I  thought  of  her  as  an  infant  in  her 
cradle,  and  I  saw  the  faded,  reserved  woman 
and  the  florid  little  man,  a  youthful  couple, 
leaning  over  it,  full  of  the  happiness  and 
wonder  that  come  with  the  first  baby.  I 
thought   of    the    endearing    helplessness   of 

69 


The  Invisible   Playmate 

those  early  weeks ;  of  the  anguish  of  the 
first  baby  troubles  ;  of  the  scares  and  terrors, 
of  the  prayers  and  thankfulness ;  of  the 
delight  in  the  first  smile ;  of  the  blissful 
delusions  that  their  little  angel  had  begun  to 
notice,  that  she  had  tried  to  speak,  that  she 
had  recognised  some  one ;  of  the  inexplic- 
able brightness  which  made  their  home,  the 
rooms,  the  garden,  the  very  street  seem  a 
bit  of  heaven  which  had  fallen  to  earth ;  of 
the  foolish  father  buying  the  little  one  toys, 
perhaps  even  a  book,  which  she  would  not 
be  able  to  handle  for  many  a  day  to  come  ; 
of  the  more  practical  mother  who  exhausted 
her  ingenuity  in  hoods  and  frocks,  bootees, 
and  dainty  vanities  of  lace  and  ribbon. 

I  thought  of  the  little  woman  when  she 
first  began  to  toddle ;  of  her  resolute  efforts 
to  carry  weights  almost  as  heavy  as  herself; 
of  her  inarticulate  volubility ;  of  the  marvel- 
lous growth  of  intelligence  —  the  quickness 
to  understand,  associated  with  the  inability 
to  express  herself;  of  her  indefatigable  imi- 
tative faculty ;  and  of  the  delight  of  her 
father  in  all  these. 

Then,  as  years  went  by,  I  saw  how  she 
70 


At  a  Wayside  Station 

had  become  essential  to  his  happiness,  how 
all  his  thoughts  encompassed  her,  how  she 
influenced  him,  how  much  better  a  man  she 
made  him;  and  as  still  the  years  elapsed, 
I  took  into  account  her  ambitions,  her  day- 
dreams, her  outlook  into  the  world  of  men 
and  women,  and  I  wondered  whether  she 
too  had  her  half-completed  romance,  of 
which,  perchance,  no  one,  not  even  her 
father,  had  an  inkling.  How  near  they  were 
to  each  other;  and  yet,  after  all,  how  far 
apart  in  many  things  they  might  still  be  ! 

Her  father's  darling !  Just  Heaven !  if 
we  have  to  give  account  of  every  foolish 
word,  for  how  much  senseless  and  cruel 
laughter  shall  we  have  to  make  reckoning? 
For,  as  I  let  my  thoughts  drift  to  and  fro 
about  these  matters,  I  remembered  the  thou- 
sands who  have  many  children  but  no  dar- 
ling; the  mothers  whose  hearts  have  been 
broken,  the  fathers  whose  grey  hairs  have 
been  brought  down  in  sorrow  to  the  grave  ; 
and  I  mused  on  those  in  whom  faith  and 
hope  have  been  kept  alive  by  prayer  and  the 
merciful  recollection  of  a  never-to-be-for- 
gotten childhood. 

71 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

When  I  reached  home  I  took  down  the 
volume  in  which  one  of  our  poets  ^  has 
spoken  in  tenderest  pathos  of  these  last 
in  the  beautiful  verses  entitled  — 


TWO   SONS 

I  have  two  sons,  Wife  — 
Two  and  yet  the  same ; 
One  his  wild  way  runs,  Wife, 
Bringing  us  to  shame. 
The   one    is   bearded,   sunburnt,   grim,   and    fights 

across  the  sea; 
The   other   is   a  little   child   who   sits   upon    your 
knee. 

One  is  fierce  and  bold,  Wife, 

As  the  wayward  deep, 
Him  no  arms  could  hold,  Wife, 
Him  no  breast  could  keep. 
He   has    tried   our    hearts   for    many   a   year,    not 

broken  them ;  for  he 
Is  still  the  sinless  little   one   that  sits  upon   your 
knee. 

One  may  fall  in  fight.  Wife  — 

Is  he  not  our  son  .'' 
Pray  with  all  your  might,  Wife, 

For  the  wayward  one ; 

1  Robert  Buchanan. 
/  - 


At  a  Wayside  Station 

Pray  for  the  dark,  rough  soldier  who  fights  across 

the  sea, 
Because  you  love  the  little  shade  who  smiles  upon 

your  knee. 

One  across  the  foam,  Wife, 

As  I  speak  may  fall ; 
But  this  one  at  home,  Wife, 
Cannot  die  at  all. 
They  both  are  only  one,  and  how  thankful  should 

we  be 
We  cannot  lose  the  darling  son  who  sits  upon  your 
knee. 


This  one  cannot  die  at  all !  To  how 
many  has  this  bright  little  shadow  of  the 
vanished  years  been  an  enduring  solace  and 
an  undying  hope  !  And  if  God's  love  be  no 
less  than  that  of  an  earthly  father,  what 
mercies,  what  long-suffering,  what  infinite 
pity  may  we  grown-up,  wilful  and  wayward 
children  not  owe  to  His  loving  memory  of 
our  sinless  infancy  !  But  for  those  happy 
parents  who,  as  the  years  have  gone  by, 
have  never  failed  to  see  the  "  sinless  little 
one,"  now  in  the  girl  or  boy,  now  in  the 
young  man  or  maiden,  and  now  in  these  no 
longer  young  but  still  darlings,  what  a  gra- 

'r  '> 
4  ^ 


The  Invisible  Playmate 

cious    providence    has    encompassed    their 
lives  ! 

When  I  had  smiled  in  witless  amusement 
I  had  not  thought  of  all  this;  and  even 
now  it  had  not  occurred  to  me  that  this 
could  have  been  no  rare  and  exceptional 
case  —  that  there  must  be  many  such  dar- 
lings in  the  world.  That  same  evening,  how- 
ever, as  I  glanced  over  the  paper,  I  came 
across  the  following  notice  in  the  column 
of  "  Births,  Deaths,  and  Marriages  "  : 

"  In  memoriam,   Louisa   S ,  who   died 

suddenly  on  August  22,  aged  40  ;  my  youngest, 
most  beloved,  and  affectionate  daughter." 


74 


W.  V.  HER   BOOK 


75 


HER    BIRTHDAY 


77 


HER   BIRTHDAY 

WE  are  still  on  the  rosy  side  of  the 
apple ;  but  this  is  the  last  Saturday 
in  September,  and  we  cannot  expect  many 
more  golden  days  between  this  and  the  cry 
of  the  cuckoo.  But  what  a  summer  we  have 
had,  thanks  to  one  of  W.  V.'s  ingenious  sug- 
gestions !  She  came  to  us  in  April,  when 
the  world  is  still  a  trifle  bare  and  the  wind 
somewhat  too  bleak  for  any  one  to  get  com- 
fortably lost  in  the  Forest  or  cast  up  on  a 
coral  reef;  so  we  have  made  her  birthday 
a  movable  feast,  -and  whenever  a  fine  free 
Saturday  comes  round  we  devote  it  to 
thankfulness  that  she'  has  been  born,  and 
to  the  joy  of  our  both  be^ijig  alive  together. 

W.  V.  sleeps  in  an  eastern  room,  and 
accordingly  the  sun  rises  on  that  side  of  the 
house.     Under  the  eaves  and  just  above  her 

79 


W.  V. 

window  the  martins  have  a  nest  plastered 
against  the  wall,  and  their  chattering  awakens 
her  in  the  first  freshness  of  the  new  morning. 
She  watches  the  black  shadows  of  the  birds 
fluttering  on  the  sunny  blind,  as,  first  one 
and  then  another,  they  race  up  to  the  nest, 
and  vibrate  in  the  air  a  moment  before  dart- 
ing into  it.  When  her  interest  has  begun  to 
flag,  she  steals  in  to  me  in  her  nightdress, 
and  tugs  gently  at  my  beard  till  I  waken  and 
sit  up.  Unhappily  her  mother  wakens  too. 
"What,  more  birthdays  !  "  she  exclaims  in  a 
tone  of  stern  disapproval ;  whereat  W.  V. 
and  I  laugh,  for  evasion  of  domestic  law  is 
the  sweet  marjoram  of  our  salad.  But  it  t's 
possible  to  coax  even  a  Draconian  parent  into 
assent,  and  oh  ! 

Flower  of  the  may, 

If  mamsie  will  not  say  her  nay, 

W.  won't  care  what  any  one  may  say ! 

We  first  make  a  tour  of  the  garden,  and  it 
is  delightful  to  observe  W.  V.  prying  about 
with  happy,  eager  eyes,  to  detect  whether 
nature  has  been  making  any  new  thing  during 
the  dim,  starry  hours  when  people  are  too 

So 


Her   Birthday 

sound  asleep  to  notice;  delightful  to  hear 
her  little  screams  of  ecstasy  when  she  has 
discovered  something  she  has  not  seen  be- 
fore. It  is  singular  how  keenly  she  notes 
every  fresh  object,  and  in  what  quaint  and 
pretty  terms  of  phrase  she  expresses  her 
glee  and  wonderment.  "  Oh,  father,  have  n't 
the  bushes  got  their  hands  quite  full  of 
flowers  ?  "  "  Are  n't  the  buds  the  trees'  little 
girls?" 

This  morning  the  sun  was  blissfully  warm, 
and  the  air  seemed  alive  with  the  sparkle  of 
the  dew,  which  lay  thick  on  every  blade  and 
leaf.  As  we  went  round  the  gravel  walks 
we  perceived  how  completely  all  the  earlier 
flowers  had  vanished ;  even  the  lovely  sweet 
peas  were  almost  over.  We  have  still,  how- 
ever, the  single  dahlias,  and  marigolds,  and 
nasturtiums,  on  whose  level  leaves  the  dew 
stood  shining  like  globules  of  quicksilver; 
and  the  tall  Michaelmas  daisies  make  quite  a 
white-topped  thicket  along  the  paling,  while 
the  rowan-berries  are  burning  in  big  red 
bunches  over  the  western  hedge. 

In   the   corner  near   the  limes  we  came 
upon  a  marvellous  spectacle  —  a  huge  old 
6  8i 


W.  V. 

spider  hanging  out  in  his  web  in  the  sun, 
Uke  a  grim  old  fisherman  floating  in  the 
midst  of  his  nets  at  sea.  A  hand's  breadth 
off,  young  bees  and  new-born  flies  were  busy 
with  the  low  perennial  sunflowers  ;  he  watch- 
ing them  motionlessly,  with  his  gruesome 
shadow  silhouetted  on  a  leaf  hard  by.  In 
his  immediate  neighbourhood  the  fine  threads 
of  his  web  were  invisible,  but  a  little  distance 
away  one  could  distinguish  their  concentric 
curves,  grey  on  green.  Every  now  and  then 
we  heard  the  snapping  of  a  stalk  overhead, 
and  a  leaf  pattered  down  from  the  limes. 
Every  now  and  then,  too,  slight  surges  of 
breeze  ran  shivering  through  the  branches. 
Nothing  distracted  the  intense  vigilance  of 
the  crafty  fisherman.  Scores  of  glimmering 
insects  grazed  the  deadly  snare,  but  none 
touched  it.  It  must  have  been  tantalising, 
but  the  creature's  sullen  patience  was  invinci- 
ble. W.  V.  at  last  dropped  a  piece  of  leaf- 
stalk on  his  web,  out  of  curiosity.  In  a 
twinkling  he  was  at  the  spot,  and  the  frag- 
ment was  dislodged  with  a  single  jerk. 

This  is   one   of  the   things  in  which  she 
delights  —  the  quiet  observation  of  the  ways 

82 


Her   Birthday 

of  creatures.  Nothing  would  please  her 
better,  could  she  but  dwarf  herself  into  an 
"aglet-baby,"  than  to  climb  into  those  filmy 
meshes  and  have  a  chat  in  the  sunshine  with 
the  wily  ogre.  She  has  no  mistrust,  she  feels 
no  repulsion  from  anything  that  has  life. 
There  is  a  warm  place  in  her  heart  for  the 
cool,  dry  toad,  and  she  loves  the  horned 
snail,  if  not  for  his  own  sake,  at  least  for  his 
"  darling  little  house  "  and  the  silver  track  he 
leaves  on  the  gravel. 

Of  course  she  wanted  a  story  about  a 
spider.  I  might  have  anticipated  as  much. 
Well,  there  was  King  Robert  the  Bruce,  who 
was  saved  by  a  spider  from  his  enemies  when 
they  were  seeking  his  life. 

"  And  if  they  had  found  him,  would 
they  have  sworded  off  his  head?  Really, 
father?  Like  Oliver  Crumball  did  Charles 
King's?" 

Her  grammar  was  defective,  but  her 
surmises  were  beyond  dispute ;  they  would. 
Then  there  was  the  story  of  Sir  Samuel 
Brown,  who  took  his  idea  of  a  suspension 
bridge  from  a  web  which  hung  —  but  W.  V. 
wanted  something  much  more  engrossing. 

83 


W.  V. 

"  Was  n't  there  never  no  awful  big  spider 

that  made  webs  in  the  Forest?" 
"And  caught  lions  and  bears?" 
She  nodded  approvingly.     Oh,  yes,  there 

was  —  once  upon  a  time, 

"  And  was  there  a  little  girl  there?" 
There  must  have  been  for  the  story  to  be 

worth  telling ;  but  the  breakfast  bell  broke  in 

on  the  opening  chapter  of  that  little  girl's 

incredible  adventures. 

After  breakfast  we  followed  the  old  birth- 
day custom,  and  "  plunged  "  into  the  depths 
of  the  Forest.  Some  persons,  I  have  heard, 
call  our  Forest  the  "  East  Woods,"  and 
report  that  though  they  are  pleasant  enough 
in  summer,  they  are  rather  meagre  and 
limited  in  area.  Now,  it  is  obvious  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  "  plunge  "  into  any- 
thing less  than  a  forest.  Certainly,  when 
W.  V.  is  with  me  I  am  conscious  of  the 
Forest  —  the  haunted,  enchanted,  aboriginal 
Forest;  and  I  see  with  something  of  her 
illumined  vision,  the  vision  of  W.  V.,  who 
can  double  for  herself  the  comfort  of  a  fire  on 
a  chilly  day  by  running  into  the  next  room 

84 


Her   Birthday 

and  returning  with  the  tidings,   "  It 's  very 
cold  in  the  woods  !  " 

If  you  are  courageous  enough  to  leave  the 
paths  and  hazard  yourself  among  the  under- 
wood and  the  litter  of  bygone  autumns, 
twenty  paces  will  take  you  to  the  small 
Gothic  doors  of  the  Oak-men;  twenty  more 
to  the  cavern  of  the  Great  Bruin  and  the 
pollard  tree  on  the  top  of  which  the  foxes 
live ;  while  yet  another  twenty,  and  you  are 
at  the  burrows  of  the  kindliest  of  all  insects, 
the  leaf-cutter  bees.  Once  —  in  parenthesis 
—  when  a  little  maid  was  weeping  because 
she  had  lost  her  way  at  dusk  in  the  Forest 
mazes,  it  was  a  leaf-cutter  bee  that  tunnelled 
a  straight  line  through  the  trees,  so  that  the 
nearest  road  lamp,  miles  away,  twinkled  right 
into  the  Forest,  and  she  was  able  to  guide  her- 
self home.  Indeed,  it  will  only  take  ten  min- 
utes, if  you  do  not  dawdle,  to  get  to  the  dread- 
ful webs  of  the  Iron  Spider,  and  when  you 
do  reach  that  spot,  the  wisest  thing  you  can 
do  is  to  follow  the  example  of  the  tiny 
flame-elf  when  a  match  is  blown  out  —  clap 
on  your  cap  of  darkness  and  scuttle  back  to 
fairyland. 


W.  V. 

What  magical  memories  have  we  two  of 
the  green  huddle  and  the  dreamy  lawns  of 
that  ancient  and  illimitable  Forest !  We 
know  the  bosky  dingles  where  we  shall  find 
pappa-trees,  on  whose  lower  branches  a  little 
girl  may  discover  something  to  eat  when  she 
is  good  enough  to  deserve  it.  We  know^ 
where  certain  green-clad  foresters  keep  store 
of  fruits  which  are  supposed,  by  those  who 
know  no  better,  to  grow  only  in  orchards  by 
tropical  seas.  Of  course  every  one  is  aware 
that  in  the  heart  of  the  Forest  there  is  a 
granite  fountain ;  but  only  we  two  have 
learned  the  secret  that  its  water  is  the 
Water  of  Heart's-ease,  and  that  if  we  con- 
tinue to  drink  it  we  shall  never  grow  really 
old.  We  have  still  a  great  deal  of  the 
Forest  to  explore ;  we  have  never  reached 
the  glade  where  the  dog- daisies  have  to 
be  chained  because  they  grow  so  exceed- 
ingly wild ;  nor  have  we  found  the  blue 
thicket  —  it  is  blue  because  it  is  so  distant 
—  from  which  some  of  the  stars  come  up 
into  the  dusk  when  it  grows  late ;  but 
when  W.  V.  has  got  her  galloping-horse- 
bicycle    we    shall    start   with    the    first   sun- 

86 


Her   Birthday 

shine  some  morning,  and  give  the  whole  day 
to  the  quest. 

We  lowly  folk  dine  before  most  people 
think  of  lunching,  and  so  dinner  was  ready 
when  we  arrived  home.  Now,  as  decorum 
at  table  is  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues  W.  V. 
dines  by  proxy.  It  is  her  charming  young 
friend  Gladys  who  gives  us  the  pleasure  of 
her  company.  It  is  strange  how  many  things 
this  bewildering  daughter  of  mine  can  do  as 
Gladys,  which  she  cannot  possibly  accom- 
plish as  W.  V.  W.  V.  is  unruly,  a  chatter- 
box, careless,  or  at  least  forgetful,  of  the 
elegances  of  the  social  board ;  whereas 
Gladys  is  a  model  of  manners,  an  angel  in  a 
bib.  W.  V.  cannot  eat  crusts,  and  rebels 
against  porridge  at  breakfast ;  Gladys  idolises 
crusts,  and  as  for  porridge  —  "I  am  sur- 
prised your  little  girl  does  not  like  porridge. 
It  is  so  good  for  her." 

After  dinner,  as  I  lay  smoking  in  the  gar- 
den lounge  to-day,  I  fell  a-thinking  of  W.  V. 
and  Gladys,  and  the  numerous  other  little 
maids  in  whom  this  tricksy  sprite    has  been 

87 


W.  V. 

masquerading  since  she  came  into  the  world 
five  years  ago.  She  began  the  small  comedy 
before  she  had  well  learned  to  balance  her- 
self on  her  feet.  As  she  sat  in  the  middle  of 
the  carpet  we  would  play  at  looking  for  the 
baby  —  where  has  the  baby  gone  ?  have  you 
seen  the  baby?  —  and,  oddly  enough,  she 
would  take  a  part  and  pretend  to  wonder,  or 
perhaps  actually  did  wonder,  what  had  be- 
come of  herself,  till  at  last  we  would  discover 
her  on  the  floor  —  to  her  own  astonishment 
and  irrepressible  delight. 

Then,  as  she  grew  older,  it  was  amusing 
to  observe  how  she  would  drive  away  the 
naughty  self,  turn  it  literally  out  of  doors, 
and  return  as  the  "Smiling  Winifred."  I 
presume  she  grew  weary,  as  human  nature  is 
apt  to  grow,  of  a  face  which  is  wreathed  in 
amaranthine  smiles  ;  so  the  Smiling  Winifred 
vanished,  and  we  were  visited  by  various 
sweet  children  with  lovely  names,  of  whom 
Gladys  is  the  latest  and  the  most  indefatiga- 
ble. I  cannot  help  laughing  when  1  recall 
my  three-year-old  rebel  listening  for  a  few 
moments  to  a  scolding,  and  when  she  con- 
sidered  that  the    ends  of  justice   had  been 

88 


Her   Birthday 

served,  exclaiming,  "  I  put  my  eyes  down  !  " 
—  which  meant  that  so  far  as  she  was 
concerned  the  episode  was  now  definitively 
closed. 

My  day-dream  was  broken  by  W.  V.  flying 
up  to  me  with  fern  fronds  fastened  to  her 
shoulders  for  wings.  She  fluttered  round  me, 
then  flopped  into  my  lap,  and  put  her  arms 
about  my  neck.  "  If  I  was  a  real  swan, 
father,  I  would  cuddle  your  head  with  my 
wings." 

"  Ah,  well,  you  are  a  real  duck.  Diddles, 
and  that  will  do  quite  as  well." 

She  was  tliinking  of  that  tender  Irish 
legend  of  the  Children  of  Lir,  changed  into 
swans  by  their  step-mother  and  doomed  to 
suffer  heat  and  cold,  tempest  and  hunger, 
homelessness  and  sorrow,  for  nine  hundred 
years,  till  the  sound  of  the  first  Christian 
bell  changed  them  again  —  to  frail,  aged 
mortals.  It  was  always  the  sister,  she  knows, 
who  solaced  and  strengthened  the  brothers 
beside  the  terrible  sea  of  Moyle,  shelter- 
ing them  under  her  wings  and  warming 
them  against   her  bosom.     In  such  a  case 

89 


W.  V. 

as  this  an  only  child  is  at  a  disadvantage. 
Even  M'rao,  her  furry  playmate,  might  have 
served  as  a  bewitched  brother,  but  after 
many  months  of  somnolent  forbearance  M'rao 
ventured  into  the  great  world  beyond  our 
limes,  and  returned  no  more. 

Flower  of  the  quince, 

Puss  once  kissed  Babs,  and  ever  since 

She  thinks  he  must  be  an  enchanted  prince. 

In  a  moment  she  was  off  again,  an  angel, 
flying  about  the  garden  and  in  and  out  of  the 
house  in  the  performance  of  helpful  offices 
for  some  one  ;  or,  perchance,  a  fairy,  for  her 
heaven  is  a  vague  and  strangely-peopled 
region.  Long  ago  she  told  me  that  the 
moon  was  "put  up"  by  a  black  man — a 
saying  which  puzzled  me  until  I  came  to 
understand  that  this  negro  divinity  could 
only  have  been  the  "  divine  Dark "  of  the 
old  Greek  poet.  Of  course  she  says  her 
brief,  simple  prayers ;  but  how  can  one  con- 
vey to  a  child's  mind  any  but  the  most 
provisional  and  elemental  conceptions  of  the 
Invisible  ?  Once  I  was  telling  her  the  story 
of  a  wicked  king,  who  put  his  trust  in  a  fort 

90 


Her   Birthday 

of  stone  on  a  mountain  peak,  and  scoffed  at 
a  prophet  God  had  sent  to  warn  him.  "  He 
was  n't  very  wise,"  said  W.  V.,  "  for  God  and 
Jesus  and  the  angels  and  the  fairies  are 
cleverer  'n  we  are  ;  they  have  wings."  The 
"  cleverness  "  of  God  has  deeply  impressed 
her.  He  can  make  rain  and  see  through 
walls.  She  noticed  some  stone  crosses  in  a 
sculptor's  yard  some  time  ago,  and  remarked  : 
"  Jesus  was  put  on  one  of  those  ;  "  then,  after 
some  reflection  :  "  Who  was  it  put  Jesus  on 
the  cross?  Was  it  the  church  people, 
father?"  Well,  when  one  comes  to  think 
of  it,  it  was  precisely  the  church  people  — 
"  not  these  church  people,  dear,  but  the 
church  people  of  hundreds  of  years  ago, 
when  Jesus  was  alive."  She  had  seen  the 
world's  tragedy  in  the  stained  glass  windows 
and  had  drawn  her  own  conclusion  —  the 
people  who  crucified  would  be  the  most 
likely  to  make  a  picture  of  the  crucifixion ; 
Christ's  friends  would  want  to  forget  it  and 
never  to  speak  of  it. 

In  the  main  she  does  not  much  concern 
herself  with  theology  or  the  unseen.  She 
lives    in    the    senses.      Once,    indeed,    she 

9^ 


W.  V. 

began  to  communicate  some  interesting  re- 
miniscences of  what  had  happened  "  before 
she  came  here,"  to  this  planet ;  but  some- 
thing interrupted  her,  and  she  has  not 
attempted  any  further  revelation.  There  is 
nothing  more  puzzling  in  the  world  to  her, 
I  fancy,  than  an  echo.  She  has  forgotten 
that  her  own  face  in  the  mirror  was  quite  as 
bewildering.  A  high  wind  at  night  is  not 
a  pleasant  fellow  to  have  shaking  your  window 
and  muttering  down  your  chimney ;  but  an 
intrepid  father  with  a  yard  of  brown  oak  is 
more  than  a  match  for  him.  Thunder  and 
lightning  she  regards  as  "  great  friends  \  they 
always  come  together."  She  is  more  per- 
ceptive of  their  companionship  than  of  their 
air  of  menace  towards  mankind.  Darkness, 
unless  it  be  on  the  staircase,  does  not  trouble 
her :  when  we  have  said  good-night  out  goes 
the  gas.  But  there  seems  to  be  some  quality 
or  influence  in  the  darkness  which  makes 
her  affectionate  and  considerate.  Once  and 
again  when  she  has  slept  with  me  and 
wakened  in  the  dead  of  night  she  has  been 
most  apologetic  and  self-abasing.  She  is  so 
sorry  to    disturb   me,    she    knows    she  is    a 

92 


Her   Birthday 

bother,  but  would  I  give  her  a  biscuit  or  a 
drink  of  water? 

She  has  all  along  been  a  curious  combina- 
tion of  tenderness  and  savagery.  In  a 
sudden  fit  of  motherhood  she  will  bring  me 
her  dolly  to  kiss,  and  ten  minutes  later  I 
shall  see  it  lying  undressed  and  abandoned 
in  a  corner  of  the  room.  She  is  a  Spartan 
parent,  and  slight  is  the  chance  of  her  chil- 
dren being  spoiled  either  by  sparing  the  rod 
or  lack  of  stern  monition.  It  is  not  so  long 
ago  that  we  heard  a  curious  sound  of  distress 
in  the  dining-room,  and  on  her  mother 
hurrying  downstairs  to  see  what  was  amiss, 
there  was  W.  V.  chastising  her  recalcitrant 
babe  —  and  doing  the  weeping  herself.  This 
appeared  to  be  a  good  opportunity  for  point- 
ing a  moral.  It  was  clear  now  that  she 
knew  what  it  was  to  be  naughty  and  dis- 
obedient, and  if  she  punished  these  faults 
so  severely  in  her  own  children  she  must 
expect  me  to  deal  with  her  manifold  and 
grievous  offences  in  the  same  way.  She 
looked  very  much  sobered  and  concerned, 
but  a  few  moments  later  she  brought  me  a 
stout  oak  walking-stick :    "  Would  that  do, 

93 


W.  V. 

father?"  She  shows  deep  commiseration 
for  the  poor  imd  old  ;  grey  hairs  and  penury 
are  sad  bed-fellows ;  but  for  the  poor  who 
are  not  old  I  fear  she  feels  little  sympathy. 
Perhaps  we,  or  the  conditions  of  life,  are  to 
blame  for  this  limitation  of  feeling,  for  when 
we  spoke  to  her  of  certain  poor  little  girls 
with  no  mothers,  she  rejoined  :  "  Why  don't 
you  take  them,  then?"  Our  compassion 
which  stopped  short  of  so  simple  a  remedy 
must  have  seemed  suspiciously  like  a 
pretence. 

To  me  one  of  the  chief  wonders  of  child- 
hood has  been  the  manner  in  which  this 
young  person  has  picked  up  words,  has 
learned  to  apply  them,  has  coined  them  for 
herself,  and  has  managed  to  equip  herself 
with  a  stock  of  quotations.  When  she  was 
yet  little  more  than  two  and  a  half  she 
applied  of  her  own  accord  the  name  Dap- 
ple-grey to  her  first  wooden  horse.  Then 
Dapple-grey  was  pressed  into  guardianship 
of  her  sleeping  dolls,  with  this  stimulative 
quotation :  "  Brave  dog,  watching  by  the 
baby's  bed."  There  was  some  vacillation,  I 
recollect,  as  to  whether  it  was  a  laburnum  or 

94 


Her   Birthday 

a  St.  Bernard  that  saved  travellers  in  the 
snow,  but  that  was  exceptional.  The  word 
"  twins  "  she  adapted  prettily  enough.  Try- 
ing once  in  an  emotional  moment  to  put  her 
love  for  me  into  terms  of  gold  currency,  she 
added  :  "  And  I  love  mother  just  the  same  ; 
you  two  are  twins,  you  know."  A  little  while 
after  the  University  boat-race  she  drew  my 
attention  to  a  doll  in  a  shop-window : 
"  Is  n't  it  beautiful  ?  And  look  at  its  Oxford 
eyes  !  "  To  "  fussle  one,"  to  disturb  one  by 
making  a  fuss,  seems  at  once  fresh  and  use- 
ful ;  "  sorefully "  is  an  acutely  expressive 
adverb;  when  you  have  to  pick  your  steps 
in  wet  weather  the  road  may  be  conveniently 
described  as  "  picky ;  "  don't  put  wild  roses 
on  the  cloth  at  dinner  lest  the  maid  should 
"  crumb  "  them  away ;  and  when  one  has  a 
cold  in  the  head  how  can  one  describe  the 
condition  of  one's  nose  except  as  "  hoarse  "  ? 
"  Lost  in  sad  thought,"  "  Now  I  have  some- 
thing to  my  heart's  content,"  "  Few  tears  are 
my  portion,"  are  among  the  story-book 
phrases  which  she  has  assimilated  for  week- 
day use.  When  she  was  being  read  to  out 
of    Kingsley's    "  Heroes,"    she    asked    her 

95 


W.  V. 

mother  to  substitute  "the  Ladies"  for  "the 
Gorgons."  She  did  not  like  the  sound  of 
the  word ;  "  it  makes  me,"  drawing  her 
breath  with  a  sort  of  shiver  through  her 
teeth,  "  it  makes  me  pull  myself  together." 
Once  when  she  broke  into  a  sudden  laugh,  for 
sheer  glee  of  living  I  suppose,  she  explained  : 
"  I  am  just  like  a  little  squirrel  biting  myself." 
Her  use  of  the  word  "  live "  is  essential 
poetry ;  the  spark  '*  lives  "  inside  the  flint, 
the  catkins  "  live  "  in  the  Forest ;  and  she 
pointed  out  to  me  the  "  lines "  down  a 
horse's  legs  where  the  blood  "  lives."  A 
sign- board  on  a  piece  of  waste  land  caused 
her  some  perplexity.  It  was  not  "  The  pub- 
lic are  requested  "  this  time,  but  "  Forbidden 
to  shoot  rubbish  here."  Either  big  game  or 
small  deer  she  could  have  understood ;  but 
—  <'  Who  wants  to  shoot  rubbish,  father?  " 

Have  I  sailed  out  of  the  trades  into  the 
doldrums  in  telling  of  this  commonplace 
little  body  ?  —  for,  after  all,  she  is  merely  the 
average,  healthy,  merry,  teasing,  delightful 
mite  who  tries  to  take  the  whole  of  life  at 
once  into  her  two  diminutive    hands.     Ah, 

96 


Her   Birthday 

well,  I  want  some  record  of  these  good,  gay 
days  of  our  early  companionship  ;  something 
that  may  still  survive  when  this  right  hand  is 
dust ;  a  testimony  that  there  lived  at  least 
one  man  who  was  joyously  content  with  the 
small  mercies  which  came  to  him  in  the 
beaten  way  of  nature.  For  neither  of  us, 
little  woman,  can  these  childish,  hilarious 
days  last  much  longer  now.  Five  arch, 
happy  faces  look  out  at  me  from  the  sections 
of  an  oblong  frame ;  all  W.  V.'s,  but  no  two 
the  same  W.  V.  The  sixth  must  go  into 
another  frame.  You  must  say  good-bye  to 
the  enchanted  Forest,  little  lass,  and  travel 
into  strange  lands ;  and  the  laws  of  infancy 
are  harder  than  the  laws  of  old  Wales.  For 
these  ordained  that  when  a  person  remained 
in  a  far  country  under  such  conditions  that 
he  could  not  freely  revisit  his  own,  his  title 
to  the  ancestral  soil  was  not  extinguished 
till  the  ninth  man;  the  ninth  man  could 
utter  his  "cry  over  the  abyss,"  and  save  his 
portion.  But  when  you  have  gone  into  the 
world  beyond,  and  can  no  more  revisit  the 
Forest  freely,  no  ear  will  ever  listen  to  your 
"  cry  over  the  abyss." 

7  97 


W.  V. 

When  she  had  at  last  tired  herself  with 
angelic  visits  and  thrown  aside  her  fern 
wings,  she  returned  to  me  and  wanted  to 
know  if  I  would  play  at  shop.  No,  I  would 
not  play  at  shop ;  I  would  be  neither  pur- 
chaser nor  proprietor,  the  lady  she  called 
"  Cash  "  nor  the  stately  gentleman  she  called 
'*  Sign."  Would  I  be  a  king,  then,  and 
refuse  my  daughter  to  her  (she  would  be  a 
prince)  unless  she  built  a  castle  in  a  single 
night;  "better 'n't"  she  bring  her  box  of 
bricks  and  the  dominoes?  No,  like  Caesar, 
I  put  by  the  crown.  She  took  my  refusals 
cheerfully.  On  the  whole,  she  is  tractable 
in  these  matters.  "  Fathers,"  she  once  told 
me,  "  know  better  than  little  girls,  don't 
they?"  "  Oh,  dear,  no!  how  could  they? 
Fathers  have  to  go  into  the  city ;  they  don't 
go  to  school  like  little  girls."  Doubtless 
there  was  something  in  that,  but  she  per- 
sisted, "  Well,  even  if  little  girls  do  go  to 
school,  fathers  are  wiser  and  know  best." 
From  which  one  father  at  least  may  derive 
encouragement.  Well,  would  I  blow  soap- 
bubbles  ? 

I  think  it  was  the  flying  thistledown  in 
98 


Her   Birthday 

June  which  first  gave  us  the  cue  of  the  soap- 
bubbles.  What  a  dehghtful  game  it  is ;  and 
there  is  a  knack,  too,  in  blowing  these 
spheres  of  fairy  glass  and  setting  them  off 
on  their  airy  flight.  Till  you  have  blown 
bubbles  you  have  no  conception  how  full  of 
waywardness  and  freakish  currents  the  air  is. 
Oh,  you  who  are  sad  at  heart,  or  weary  of 
thought,  or  irritable  with  physical  pain,  coax, 
beg,  borrow,  or  steal  a  four  or  five  year  old, 
and  betake  you  to  blowing  bubbles  in  the 
sunshine  of  your  recluse  garden.  Let  the 
breeze  be  just  a  little  brisk  to  set  your 
bubbles  drifting.  Fill  some  of  them  with 
tobacco  smoke,  and  with  the  wind's  help 
bombard  the  old  fisherman  in  his  web.  As 
the  opaline  globes  break  and  the  smoke 
escapes  in  a  white  puff  along  the  grass  or 
among  the  leaves,  you  shall  think  of  historic 
battlefields,  and  muse  whether  the  greater 
game  was  not  quite  as  childish  as  this,  and 
"  sorefully "  less  innocent.  The  smoke- 
charges  are  only  a  diversion  ;  it  is  the  crystal 
balls  which  delight  most.  The  colours  of 
all  the  gems  in  the  world  run  molten  through 
their  fragile  films.     And   what  visions  they 

99 


W.  V. 

contain  for  crystal- gazers  !  Among  the  gold 
and  green,  the  rose  and  blue,  you  see  the 
dwarfed  reflection  of  your  own  trees  and 
your  own  home  floating  up  into  the  sunshine. 
These  are  your  possessions,  your  surroundings 
—  so  lovely,  so  fairylike  in  the  bubble  ;  in 
reality  so  prosaic  and  so  inadequate  when 
one  considers  the  rent  and  rates.  To  W. 
V.  the  bubbles  are  like  the  wine  of  the  poet 
— "  full  of  strange  continents  and  new 
discoveries." 

Flower  of  the  sloe. 

When  chance  annuls  the  worlds  we  blow, 

Where  does  the  soul  of  beauty  in  them  go  } 

"Tell  me  a  story  of  a  little  girl  who  lived 
in  a  bubble,"  she  asked  when  she  had  tired 
of  creating  fresh  microcosms. 

I  lifted  her  on  to  my  knee,  and  as  she 
settled  herself  comfortably  she  drew  my  right 
arm  across  her  breast  and  began  to  nurse  it. 

"Well,  once  upon  a  time " 


I  GO 


HER    BOOK 


lOI 


THE   INQUISITION 


I  WOKE  at  dead  of  night ; 
The  room  was  still  as  death  ; 
All  in  the  dark  I  saw  a  sight 

Which  made  me  catch  my  breath. 


Although  she  slumbered  near, 
The  silence  hung  so  deep 

I  leaned  above  her  crib  to  hear 
If  it  were  death  or  sleep. 

103 


W.  V. 

As  low  —  all  quick  —  I  leant, 
Two  large  eyes  thrust  me  back ; 

Dark  eyes  —  too  wise  —  which  gazed  intent ; 
Blue  eyes  transformed  to  black. 


Heavens  !  how  those  steadfast  eyes 

Their  eerie  vigil  kept ! 
Was  this  some  angel  in  disguise 

Who  searched  us  while  we  slept ; 


Who  winnow'd  every  sin, 

Who  tracked  each  slip  and  fall. 

One  of  God's  spies  —  not  Babbykin, 
Not  Babbykin  at  all? 


Day  came  with  golden  air ; 

She  caught  the  beams  and  smiled ; 
No  masked  inquisitor  was  there, 

Only  a  babbling  child  1 


104 


THE   FIRST   MIRACLE 


THE  huge  weeds  bent  to  let  her  pass, 
And  sometimes  she  crept  under ; 
She  plunged  through  gulfs  of  flowery  grass ; 
She  filled  both  hands  with  plunder. 


The  buttercups  grew  tall  as  she, 
Taller  the  big  dog-daisies ; 

And  so  she  lost  herself,  you  see, 
Deep  in  the  jungle  mazes. 


I  OS 


W.  V. 

A  wasp  twang'd  by ;  a  horned  snail 
Leered  from  a  great-leafed  docken  ; 

She  shut  her  eyes,  she  raised  a  wail 
Deplorable,  heart-broken. 


"  Mamma  !  "  Two  arms,  flashed  out  of  space 

Miraculously,  caught  her ; 
Fond  mouth  was  pressed  to  tearful  face  — 

"  What  is  it,  little  daughter?  " 


1 06 


BY  THE   FIRESIDE 


RED-BOSOMED    Robin,    in    the    hard 
white  weather 
She  marks  thee  Hghtupon  the  ice  to  rest ; 
She  sees  the  wintry  glass  glow  with  thy 
breast 
And  let  thee  warm  thy  feet  at  thine  own 
feather. 


107 


BY  THE   FIRESIDE 


n 


IN  the  April  sun  at  baby- house  she  plays. 
Her  rooms  are  traced  with  stones  and 

bits  of  bricks ; 
For  warmth  she  lays  a  hearth  with  little 
sticks, 
And    one    bright    crocus    makes    a    merry 
blaze  ! 


1 08 


THE   RAIDER 


HER  happy,  wondering  eyes  had  ne'er 
Till  now  ranged  summer    meadows 
o'er : 
She  would  keep  stopping  everywhere 
To  fill  with  flowers  her  pinafore. 


But  when  she  saw  how,  green  and  wide, 
Field  followed  field,  and  each  was  gay 

With    endless    flowers,   she   laughed  —  then 
sighed, 
"No  use  !  "  and  threw  her  spoils  away. 


[09 


BABSIE-BIRD 


IN  the  orchard  blithely  waking, 
Through  the  blossom,  loud  and  clear. 
Pipes  the  goldfinch,  "  Day  is  breaking ; 

Waken,  Babsie  ;  May  is  here  ! 
Bloom  is  laughing  ;  lambs  are  leaping ; 

Every  new  green  leaflet  sings  ; 
Five  chipp'd  eggs  will  soon  be  cheeping ; 
God  be  praised  for  song  and  wings  !  " 


no 


Her  Book 

Warm  and  ruddy  as  an  ember, 

Lilting  sweet  from  bush  to  stone, 
On  the  moor  in  chill  November 

Flits  the  stone-chat  all  alone  : 
**  Snow  will  soon  drift  up  the  heather ; 

Days  are  short,  nights  cold  and  long ; 
Meanwhile  in  this  glinting  weather 

God  be  thanked  for  wings  and  song  !  ' 


Round  from  Maytime  to  November 

Babsie  lilts  upon  the  wing, 
Far  too  happy  to  remember 

Thanks  or  praise  for  anything ; 
Save  at  bedtime,  laughing  sinner, 

When  she  gaily  lisps  along, 
For  the  wings  and  song  within  her  — 

"  Thank  you,  God,  for  wings  and  song 


III 


THE   ORCHARD   OF   STARS 


AMID  the  orchard  grass  she  'd  stood 
and  watch'd  with  childish  glee 
The  big  bright  burning  apples  shower'd 
like  star-falls  from  the  tree ; 


So  when  the  autumn  meteors  fell 

she  cried,  with  outspread  gown, 

"  Oh  my,  papa,  look  !     Is  n't  God 
just  shaking  apples  down?" 


ii: 


THE   SWEET   PEA 


OH,  what  has  been  bom  in  the  night 
To  bask  in  this  blithe  summer  morn  ? 
She  peers,  in  a  dream  of  delight, 

For  something  new-made  or  new-born. 


Not  spider-webs  under  the  tree, 
Not  swifts  in  their  cradle  of  mud, 

But  —  '*  Look,  father,  Sweet  Mrs.  Pea 
Has  two  little  babies  in  bud  !  " 


"3 


BROOK-SIDE   LOGIC 


S  the    brook  caught  the  blossoms  she 
cast, 

Such  a  wonder  gazed  out  from  her  face  ! 
Why,  the  water  was  all  running  past, 

Yet  the  brook  never  budged  from  its  place. 


A^ 


Oh,  the  magic  of  what  was  so  clear ! 

I     explained.      And      enlightened     her? 
Nay  — 
"Why  but,  father,  I  could  rC  t '=>\.z-^  here 

If  I  always  was  running  away  !  " 


114 


BUBBLE-BLOWING 


OUR  plot  is  small,  but  sunny  limes 
Shut  out  all  cares  and  troubles ; 
And  there  my  little  girl  at  times 
And  I  sit  blowing  bubbles. 


The  screaming  swifts  race  to  and  fro, 

Bees  cross  the  ivied  paling, 
Draughts  lift  and  set  the  globes  we  blow 

In  freakish  currents  sailing. 


"5 


W,  V. 

They  glide,  they  dart,  they  soar,  they  break. 

Oh,  joyous  little  daughter, 
What  lovely  coloured  worlds  we  make, 

What  crystal  flowers  of  water  ! 

One,  green  and  rosy,  slowly  drops ; 

One  soars  and  shines  a  minute. 
And  carries  to  the  lime-tree  tops 

Our  home,  reflected  in  it. 

The  gable,  with  cream  rose  in  bloom. 
She  sees  from  roof  to  basement ; 

"  Oh,  father,  there  's  your  little  room  !  " 
She  cries  in  glad  amazement. 

To  her  enchanted  with  the  gleam. 

The  glamour  and  the  glory, 
The  bubble  home  's  a  home  of  dream, 

And  I  must  tell  its  story ; 

Tell  what  we  did,  and  how  we  played. 
Withdrawn  from  care  and  trouble  — • 

A  father  and  his  merry  maid, 
Whose  house  was  in  a  bubble  ! 
ii6 


NEW   VERSION    OF   AN    OLD    GAME 


THE  storm  had  left  the  rain-butt  brim- 
ming; 
A  dahha  leaned  across  the  brink ; 
Its  mirrored  self,  beneath  it  swimming, 
Lit  the  dark  water,  gold  and  pink. 


Oh,  rain,  far  fallen  from  heights  of  azure  — 
Pure    rain,    from    heavens    so    cold    and 
lone  — 

Dost  thou  not  feel,  and  thrill  with  pleasure 
To  feel  a  flower's  heart  in  thine  own  ? 


Enjoy  thy  beauty,  and  bestow  it, 

Fair  dahlia,  fenced  from  harm,  mishap  ! 
"  See,    Babs,   this    flower  —  and    this    below 
it." 
She  looked,  and  screamed  in  rapture  — 
«  Snap  1 " 

117 


THE   GOLDEN   SWING-BOAT 


ACROSS  the  low  dim  fields  we  caught 
Faint  music  from  a  distant  band  — 
So  sweet  i'  the  dusk  one  might  have  thought 
It  floated  up  from  elfin-land. 


Then,  o'er  the  tree-tops'  hazy  blue 
We  saw  the  new  moon,  low  i'  the  air : 

"Look,  Dad,"  she  cried,  "a  shuggy-shue  ! 
Why,  this  must  be  a  fairies'  fair  !  " 


ii^i 


ANOTHER  NEWTON'S  APPLE 

WE  tried  to  show  with  lamp  and  ball 
How   simply  day  and   night  were 
"  made ;  " 
How  earth  revolved,  and  how  through  all 
One  half  was  sunshine,  one  was  shade. 

One  side,  tho'  turned  and  turned  again, 
Was  always  bright.  She  mused  and  frowned, 

Then  flashed  —  "  It 's  just  an  apple,  then, 
'at 's  always  rosy  half  way  round  !  " 

Oh,  boundless  tree  of  ranging  blue, 

Star-fruited  through  thy  heavenly  leaves. 

Be,  if  thou  canst  be,  good  unto 
This  apple-loving  babe  of  Eve's. 


119 


NATURULA   NATURANS 


BESIDE  the  water  and  the  crumbs 
She  laid  her  Httle  birds  of  clay, 
For  —  "  When  some  other  sparrow  comes 
Perhaps  they  '11  fly  away." 


Ah,  golden  dream,  to  clothe  with  wings 
A  heart  of  springing  joy ;  to  know 

Two  lives  i'  the  happy  sum  of  things 
To  her  their  bliss  will  owe  ! 


Day  dawned ;  they  had  not  taken  flight, 
Tho'  playmates  called  from  bush  and  tree. 

She  sighed  :  "  I  hardly  thought  they  might. 
Well,  —  God  's  more  clever  'n  me !  " 


I20 


WINGS  AND   HANDS 


GOD'S  angels,  dear,  have  six  great  wings 
Of  silver  and  of  gold  ; 
Two   round   their   heads,    two    round    their 
hearts. 
Two  round  their  feet  they  fold. 


The  angel  of  a  man  I  know 

Has  just  two  hands  —  so  small ! 

But  they  're  more  strong  than  six  gold  wings 
To  keep  him  from  a  fall. 


121 


FLOWERS   INVISIBLE 


SHE  'D  watched  the  rose-trees,  how  they 
grew 
With  green  hands  full  of  flowers ; 
Such  flowers  made   their  hands  sweet,  she 
knew, 
But  tenderness  made  ours. 


So  now,  o'er  fevered  brow  and  eyes 
Two  small  cold  palms  she  closes. 

"  Thanks,   darling  !  "     "  Oh,  mamma,"    she 
cries, 
"Are  my  hands  full  of  roses?  " 


Z22 


MAKING  PANSIES 


"  'T^HREE  faces  in  a  hood." 
X       Folk  called  the  pansy  so 
Three  hundred  years  ago. 
Of  course  she  understood  ! 


Then,  perching  on  my  knee, 

She  drew  her  mother's  head 
To  her  own  and  mine,  and  said 

"That's  mother,  you,  and  me  !  " 


And  so  it  comes  about 

We  three,  for  gladness'  sake, 
Sometimes  a  pansy  make 

Before  the  gas  goes  out. 


123 


HEART-EASE 


LAST  June  —  how  slight  a  thing  to  tell !  — 
One  straggling  leaf  beneath  the  limes 
Against  the  sunset  rose  and  fell, 

Making  a  rhythm  with  coloured  rhymes. 


No  other  leaf  in  all  the  air 

Seemed  waking ;  and  my  little  maid 
Watched  with  me,  from  the  garden-chair, 

Its  rhythmic  play  of  light  and  shade. 


Now  glassy  gold,  now  greenish  grey, 

It  dropped,  it  lifted.     That  was  all. 

Strange  I  should  still  feel  glad  to-day 

To  have  seen  that  one  leaf  lift  and  fall. 


124 


"SI  J'AVAIS   UN  ARPENT" 


O' 


^H,  had  I  but  a  plot  of  earth,  on  plain 
or  vale  or  hill, 
With    running   water    babbling   through,    in 
torrent,  spring,  or  rill, 


I  'd  plant  a  tree,  an  olive  or  an  oak  or  willow 

tree, 
And  build  a  roof  of  thatch,  or  tile,  or  reed, 

for  mine  and  me. 


125 


W.  V. 

Upon  my  tree  a  nest  of  moss,  or  down,  or 

wool,  should  hold 
A  songster  —  finch   or   thrush   or    blackbird 

with  its  bill  of  gold  ; 

Beneath    my    roof  a   child,   with    brown    or 

blond  or  chestnut  hair, 
Should   find   in  hammock,  cradle  or   crib  a 

nest,  and  slumber  there. 

1  ask  for  but  a  little  plot ;  to  measure  my 

domain, 
I  'd  say  to   Babs,  my  bairn  of  bliss,   "  Go, 

alderliefest  wean, 

"  And    stand    against   the   rising   sun ;  your 

shadow  on  the  grass 
Shall  trace  the  limits  of  my  world ;  beyond  I 

shall  not  pass. 

"  The  happiness   one  ?an't  attain  is  dream 
and  glamour-shine  !  " 

These    rhymes   are    Soulary's ;  the  thoughts 
are  Babs's  thoughts  and  mine. 
126 


HER    FRIEND   LITTLEJOHN 


[27 


HER   FRIEND    LITTLEJOHN 

THE  first  time  Littlejohn  saw  W.  V.  —  a 
year  or  so  ago  —  she  was  sitting  on 
the  edge  of  a  big  red  flower-pot,  into  which 
she  had  managed  to  pack  herself.  A  biil- 
hant  Japanese  sunshade  was  tilted  over  her 
shoulder,  and  close  by  stood  a  large  green 
watering-can.  This  was  her  way  of  "  playing 
at  botany,"  but  as  the  old  gardener  could 
not  be  prevailed  upon  to  water  her,  there 
was  not  as  much  fun  in  the  game  as  there 
ought  to  have  been. 

W.  V.  was  accordingly  consoling  herself 
with  telling  "  Mr.  Sandy  "  —  the  recalcitrant 
gardener  —  the  authentic  and  incredible 
story  of  the  little  girl  who  was  "  just  'scruci- 
atingly  good." 

Later,  on  an  idyllic  afternoon  among  the 
heather,  Littlejohn  heard  all  about  that  excel- 

Q  I2Q 


W.  V. 

rent  and  too  precipitate  child,  who  was  so 
eager  to  obhge  or  obey  that  she  rushed  off 
before  she  could  be  told  what  to  do ;  and 
as  this  was  the  only  story  W.  V.  knew  which 
had  obviously  a  moral,  W.  V.  made  it  a 
great  point  to  explain  that  "  little  girls  ought 
not  to  be  too  good  ;  if —  they  —  ojily  —  did 
—  what —  they  —  were  —  told  they  would  be 
good  enough." 

W.  V.'s  mother  had  been  taken  seriously  ill 
a  few  weeks  before,  and  as  a  house  of  sickness 
is  not  the  best  place  for  a  small  child,  nor  a 
small  child  the  most  soothing  presence  in  a 
patient's  room,  W.  V.  had  undertaken  a  mar- 
vellous and  what  seemed  an  interminable  jour- 
ney into  the  West  Highlands.  Her  host  and 
hostess  were  delighted  with  her  and  her  odd 
sayings  and  quaint,  fanciful  ways ;  and  she, 
in  the  plenitude  of  her  good-nature,  extended 
a  cheerful  patronage  to  the  grown-up  people. 
Littlejohn  had  no  children  of  his  own,  and  it 
was  a  novel  delight,  full  of  charming  sur- 
prises, to  have  a  sturdy,  imperious,  sunny- 
hearted  little  body  of  four  and  a  half  as  his 
constant  companion.  The  child  was  pretty 
enough,  but  it  was  the  alert,  excitable  little 


Her  Friend  Littlejohn 

soul  of  her  which  peered  and  laughed  out  of 
her  blue  eyes  that  took  him  captive. 

Like  most  healthy  children,  W.  V.  did 
not  understand  what  sorrow,  sickness,  or 
death  meant.  Indeed  it  is  told  of  her  that 
she  once  exclaimed  gleefully,  "  Oh,  see, 
here's  a  funeral!  Which  is  the  bride?" 
The  absence  of  her  mother  did  not  weigh 
upon  her.  Once  she  awoke  at  night  and 
cried  for  her ;  and  on  one  or  two  occasions, 
in  a  sentimental  mood,  she  sighed  "  I  shoicld 
like  to  see  my  father  !  Don't  you  think  we 
could  *  run  over  '  ?  "  The  immediate  pres- 
ent, its  fun  and  nonsense  and  grave  respon- 
sibilities, absorbed  all  her  energies  and 
attention  ;  and  what  a  divine  dispensation  it 
is  that  we  who  never  forget  can  be  forgotten 
so  easily. 

I  fancy,  from  what  I  have  heard,  that  she 
must  have  regarded  Littlejohn's  ignorance 
of  the  ways  of  children  as  one  of  her  respon- 
sibilities. It  was  really  very  deplorable  to 
find  a  great-statured,  ruddy-bearded  fellow 
of  two-and-thirty  so  absolutely  wanting  in 
tact,  so  incapable  of  "pretending,"  so  desti- 
tute of  the  capacity  of  rhyming  or  of  telling 

131 


W.  V. 

a  story.  The  way  she  took  him  in  hand 
was  kindly  yet  resolute.  It  began  with  her 
banging  her  head  against  something  and 
howling.  "  Don't  cry,  dear,"  Littlejohn  had 
entreated,  with  the  crude  pathos  of  an  ama- 
teur; "come,  don't  cry." 

When  W.  V.  had  heard  enough  of  this  she 
looked  at  him  disapprovingly,  and  said, 
"  You  should  n't  say  that.  You  should  just 
laugh  and  say,  '  Come,  let  me  kiss  that  crystal 
tear  away  ! '  "  "  Say  it !  "  she  added  after  a 
pause.  This  was  Littlejohn's  first  lesson  in 
the  airy  art  of  consolation. 

Littlejohn  as  a  lyric  poet  was  a  melancholy 
spectacle. 

"Now,  you  say,  'Come,  let  us  go,'  "  W. 
V.  would  command. 

"  I  don't  know  it,  dear." 

"  I  '11  say  half  for  you  — 

"  Come,  let  us  go  where  the  people  sell " 


But  Littlejohn  had  n't  the  slightest  notion 
of  what  they  sold. 

"  Bananas,"  W.  V.  prompted  ;  "  say  it." 
"  Bananas." 
"  And  what  ?  " 

132 


Her  Friend  Littlejohn 

"  Oranges  ?  "  Littlejohn  hazarded. 

"  Pears  !  "  cried  W.  V.  reproachfully ; 
"  say  it !  " 

"Pears." 

"  And "  with  pauses  to  give  her  host 

chances  of  retrieving  his  honour ;  "  pine  — 
ap — pel  !  — 

'  Bananas  and  pears  and  pine-app^l,* 

of  course.  I  don't  think  you  can  publish  a 
poem." 

"  I  don't  think  I  can,  dear,"  Littlejohn 
confessed  after  a  roar  of  laughter. 

"  Papa  and  I  published  that  poem.  Pine- 
appel  made  me  laugh  at  first.  And  after 
that  you  say  — 

'  Away  to  the  market  I  and  let  us  buy 
A  sparrow  to  make  asparagus  pie.' 

Say  it !  " 

So  in  time  Littlejohn  found  his  memory 
becoming  rapidly  stocked  with  all  sorts  of 
nonsensical  rhymes  and  ridiculous  pronun- 
ciations. 

Inability  to  rhyme,  like  inability  to  reason, 
is  a  gift  of  nature,  and  one  can  overlook  it, 

^2>Z 


W.  V. 

but  Littlejohn's  sheer  imbecility  in  face  of 
tiie  demand  for  a  story  was  a  sore  trial  to 
W.  V.  After  an  impatient  lesson  or  two, 
the  way  in  which  he  picked  up  a  substitute 
for  imagination  was  really  exceedingly  credi- 
table. Having  spent  a  day  in  the  "  Forest" 
—  W.  V.  could  pack  some  of  her  forests  in  a 
nutshell,  and  feel  herself  a  woodlander  of 
infinite  verdure  —  Littlejohn  learned  which 
trees  were  "  pappa- trees  "  ;  how  to  knock 
and  ask  if  any  one  was  in ;  how  to  make  the 
dog  inside  bark  if  there  was  no  one ;  how  to 
get  an  answer  in  the  affirmative  if  he  asked 
whether  they  could  give  his  little  girl  a  bis- 
cuit, or  a  pear,  or  a  plum  ;  how  to  discover 
the  fork  in  the  branches  where  the  gift  would 
be  found,  and  how  to  present  it  to  W.  V. 
with  an  air  of  inexhaustible  surprise  and 
dehght.  Every  Forest  is  full  of  "■  pappa- 
trees,"  as  every  verderer  knows  ;  the  crux  of 
the  situation  presents  itself  when  the  tenant 
of  the  tree  is  cross,  or  the  barking  dog  inti- 
mates that  he  has  gone  "to  the  City." 

Now,  about  a  mile  from  Cloan  Den,  Little- 
john's house,  there  was  a  bit  of  the  real 
"  old  ancient "   Caledonian   Forest.     There 

134 


Her  Friend  Littlejohn 

was  not  much  timber,  it  is  true,  but  still 
enough ;  and  occasionally  one  came  across 
a  shattered  shell  of  oak,  which  might  have 
been  a  pillar  of  cloudy  foliage  in  the  days 
when  woad  was  the  fashionable  dress  mate- 
rial. I  have  reason  to  believe  that  W.  V. 
invested  all  that  wild  region  with  a  rosy 
atmosphere  of  romance  for  Littlejohn. 
Every  blade  of  grass  and  fringe  of  larch  was 
alive  with  wood-magic.  She  trotted  about 
with  him  holding  his  hand,  or  swinging  on 
before  him  with  her  broad  boyish  shoulders 
thrown  well  back  and  an  air  of  unconscious 
proprietorship  of  man  and  nature. 

It  was  curious  to  note  how  her  father's 
stories  had  taken  hold  of  her,  and  Little- 
john, with  some  surprise  at  himself  and  at 
the  nature  of  things  at  large,  began  to  fancy 
he  saw  motive  and  purpose  in  some  of  these 
fantastic  narratives.  The  legend  of  the  girl 
that  was  "just  'scruciatingly  good  "  had  evi- 
dently been  intended  to  correct  a  possible 
tendency  towards  priggishness.  The  boy 
whose  abnormal  badness  expressed  itself  in 
*'  I  don't  care "  could  not  have  been  so 
irredeemably  wicked,  or  he  would  never  have 

^35 


W.  V. 

succeeded  in  locking  the  bear  and  tiger  up 
in  the  tree  and  leaving  them  there  to  dine 
off  each  other.  And  all  the  stories  about 
little  girls  who  got  lost  —  there  were  several 
of  these  —  were  evidently  lessons  against 
fright  and  incentives  to  courage  and  self- 
confidence. 

W.  V.  quite  believed  that  if  a  little  girl 
got  bewildered  in  the  underwood  the  grass 
would  whisper  "This  way,  this  way!"  or 
some  little  furry  creature  would  look  up  at 
her  with  its  sharp  beady  eyes  and  tell  her  to 
follow.  Even  though  one  were  hungry  and 
thirsty  as  well  as  lost,  there  was  nothing  to 
be  afraid  of,  if  there  were  only  oaks  in  the 
Forest.  For  when  once  on  a  time  a  little 
girl  —  whose  name,  strangely  enough,  was 
W.  V.  —  got  lost  and  began  to  cry,  did  not 
the  door  of  an  oak-tree  open  and  a  little, 
little,  wee  man  all  dressed  in  green,  with 
green  boots  and  a  green  feather  in  his  cap, 
come  out  and  ask  her  to  "step  inside,"  and 
have  some  fruit  and  milk?  And  didn't  he 
say,  "When  you  get  lost,  don't  keep  going 
this  way  and  going  that  way  and  going  the 
other  way,  but  keep  straight  on  and  you  are 

136 


Her  Friend   Littlejohn 

sure  to  come  out  at  the  other  side?  Only 
poor  wild  things  in  cages  at  the  Zoo  keep 
going  round  and  round." 

And  that  is  ''truly  and  really,"  W.  V. 
would  add,  "  because  I  saw  them  doing  it 
at  the  Zoo." 

Even  at  the  risk  of  being  tedious,  I  must 
finish  the  story,  for  it  was  one  that  greatly 
delighted  Littlejohn  and  haunted  him  in  a 
pleasant  fashion.  Well,  when  this  little  girl  who 
was  lost  had  eaten  the  fruit  and  drunk  the  milk, 
she  asked  the  wee  green  oak-man  to  go  with 
her  a  little  way,  as  it  was  growing  dusk.  And 
he  said  he  would.  Then  he  whistled,  and 
close  to,  and  then  farther  away,  and  still 
farther  and  farther,  other  little  oak-men  whis- 
tled in  answer,  till  all  the  Forest  was  full  of 
the  sound  of  whisding.  And  the  oak-man 
shouted,  "  Will  you  help  this  little  girl  out?  " 
and  you  could  hear  "  Yes,  yes,  yes,  yes,"  far 
away  right  and  left,  to  the  very  end  of  the 
Forest.  And  the  oak-man  walked  a  few 
yards  with  her,  and  pointed ;  and  she  saw 
another  oak  and  another  oak-man ;  and  so 
she  went  on  from  one  to  another  right 
through  the  Forest ;   and  she  said,  "  Thank 

137 


\V.   V. 

you,  Mr.  Oak-man."  to  each  of  them,  and 
bent  down  and  gave  each  of  them  a  kiss, 
and  they  all  laughod  because  they  were 
pleased,  and  when  she  got  out  she  could 
still  hear  them  laughing  quietly  together. 

Another  story  that  pleased  littlejohn 
hugely,  and  he  liked  W.  V.  to  tell  it  as  he 
lay  in  a  hollow  among  the  heather  with  his 
bonnet  pulled  down  to  the  tip  of  his  nose, 
was  about  the  lost  little  girl  who  NN-alked 
among  the  high  grass  —  it  was  quite  up  to 
her  eyes  —  till  she  \ras  "tired  to  death." 
So  she  lay  down,  and  just  as  she  was  begin- 
ning to  doze  otr  she  heard  a  very  sot\  voice 
humming  her  to  sleep,  and  she  felt  warm 
soft  arms  snuggling  her  close  to  a  warm 
breast.  And  as  she  was  wondering  who  it 
could  be  that  was  so  kind  to  her,  the  soft 
\*oice  whispered.  **  It  is  only  mother,  dearie  ; 
sleep-a- sleep,  dearie ;  only  mother  cuddling 
her  little  girl."  And  when  she  woke  there 
was  no  one  there,  and  she  had  been  lying 
in  quite  a  little  gmssy  nest  in  the  hollow  ot 
the  ground. 

l.ittlejohn  himself  could  hardly  credit  the 
chvXnge  which  this  voluble,  piquant,  imperious 


Her  Friend   Littlcjohii 

young  person  had  made  not  only  in  the 
ways  of  the  house,  but  in  his  very  being 
and  in  the  material  landscape  itself.  One 
of  the  oddest  and  most  incongruous  things 
he  ever  did  in  his  life  was  to  measure  W,  V, 
against  a  tree  and  inscribe  her  initials  (her 
father  always  called  her  by  her  initials  and 
she  liked  that  form  of  her  name  best),  and 
his  own,  and  the  date,  above  the  score  which 
marked  her  height. 

The  late  summer  and  the  early  autumn 
passed  delightfully  in  this  fashion.  There 
was  some  talk  at  intervals  of  W.  V.  being 
packed,  labelled,  and  despatched  '<  with 
care  "  to  her  own  woods  and  oak-men  in 
the  most  pleasant  suburb  of  the  great 
metropolis,  but  it  never  came  to  anything. 
Her  father  was  persuaded  to  spare  her  just 
a  little  longer.  The  patter  of  the  little  feet, 
the  chatter  of  the  voluble,  cheery  voice,  had 
grown  well-nigh  indispensable  to  Littlejohn 
and  his  wife,  for  though  I  have  confined 
myself  to  Littlejohn's  side  of  the  story,  I 
would  not  have  it  supposed  that  W.  V.'s 
charm  did  not  radiate   into  other  lives. 

So  the  cold  rain  and  the  drifted  leaf,  the 

139 


W.  V. 

first  frost  and  the  first  snow  came ;  and  in 
their  train  come  Christmas  and  the  Christ- 
mas-tree and  the  joyful  vision  of  Santa  Claus. 

Now  to  make  a  long  story  short,  a  polite 
note  had  arrived  at  Cloan  Den  asking  for  the 
pleasure  of  Miss  W.  V.'s  company  at  Bar- 
geddie  Mains  —  about  a  mile  and  a  half  be- 
yond the  "  old  ancient  "  Caledonian  Forest  — 
where  a  Christmas-tree  was  to  be  despoiled  of 
its  fairy  fruitage.  The  Bargeddie  boys  would 
drive  over  for  Miss  W.  V.  in  the  afternoon, 
and  "Uncle  Big- John  "  would  perhaps  come 
for  the  young  lady  in  the  evening,  unless  in- 
deed he  would  change  his  mind  and  allow 
her  to  stay  all  night. 

Uncle  Big-John,  of  course,  did  not  change 
his  mind  ;  and  about  nine  o'clock  he  reached 
the  Mains.  It  was  a  sharp  moonlight  night, 
and  the  wide  snowy  strath  sweeping  away  up 
to  the  vast  snow-muffled  Bens  looked  like  a 
silvery  expanse  of  fairyland.  So  far  as  I  can 
gather  it  must  have  been  well  on  the  early 
side  of  ten  when  Littlejohn  and  W.  V.  (re- 
joicing in  the  spoils  of  the  Christmas-tree) 
bade  the  Bargeddie  people  good-night  and 
started   homeward  —  the  child  warmly  muf- 

140 


Her  Friend   Littlejohn 

fled,  and  chattering  and  laughing  hilariously 
as  she  trotted  along  with  her  hand  in  his. 

It  has  often  since  been  a  subject  of  wonder 
that  Littlejohn  did  not  notice  the  change  of 
the  weather,  or  that,  having  noticed  it,  he 
did  not  return  for  shelter  to  the  Mains.  But 
we  are  all  too  easily  wise  after  the  event,  and 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  distance  from 
home  was  little  over  three  miles,  and  that 
Littlejohn  was  a  perfect  giant  of  a  man. 

They  could  have  hardly  been  more  than 
half  a  mile  from  Bargeddie  when  the  snow 
storm  began.  The  sparse  big  flakes  thick- 
ened, the  wind  rose  bitterly  cold,  and  then, 
in  a  fierce  smother  of  darkness,  the  moonlight 
was  blotted  out.  For  what  follows  the  story 
depends  principally  on  the  recollections  of 
W.  v.,  and  in  a  great  measure  on  one's 
knowledge  of  Littlejohn's  nature. 

The  biting  cold  and  the  violence  of  the  wind 
soon  exhausted  the  small  traveller.  Little- 
john took  her  in  his  arms,  and  wrapped  her 
in  his  plaid.  For  some  time  they  kept  to 
the  highroad,  but  the  bitter  weather  suggested 
the  advisability  of  taking  a  crow-line  across 
the  Forest. 

141 


W.  V. 

"  You  're  a  jolly  heavy  lumpumpibus,  In- 
fanta," Littlejohn  said  with  a  laugh ;  "  I 
think  we  had  better  try  a  short  cut  for  once 
through  the  old  oaks." 

When  they  got  into  some  slight  cover 
among  the  younger  trees,  Littlejohn  paused 
to  recover  his  breath.  It  was  still  blowing 
and  snowing  heavily. 

"  Now,  W.  v.,  I  think  it  would  be  as  well 
if  you  knocked  up  some  of  your  little  green 
oak-men,  for  the  Lord  be  good  to  me  if  I 
know  where  we  are." 

"  Vou  must  knock,"  said  W.  V.,  "but  I 
don't  think  you  will  get  any  bananas." 

W.  v.  says  that  Littlejohn  did  knock  and 
that  the  bark  of  the  dog  showed  that  the  oak- 
man  was  not  at  home  ! 

"  I  rather  thought  he  would  not  be,  W. 
v.,"  said  Littlejohn;  "they  never  are  at 
home  except  only  to  the  little  people.  We 
big  ones  have  to  take  care  of  ourselves." 

"The  oak-man  said,  'Keep  straight  on, 
and  you  're  sure  to  come  out  at  the  other 
side,'  "  W.  V.  reminded  him. 

"The  oak-man  spoke  words  of  wisdom, 
Infanta,"  said  Littlejohn.     "  Come  along,  W. 

142 


Her  Friend  Littlejohn 

V."  And  he  lifted  the  child  again  in  his 
arms.     "  Are  you  cold,  my  dearie-girl?  " 

"  No,  only  my  face  ;  but  I  am  so  sleepy." 

"  And  so  heavy,  W.  V.  I  did  n't  think  a 
little  girl  could  be  so  heavy.  Come  along, 
and  let  us  try  keeping  straight  on.  The 
other  side  must  be  somewhere." 

How  long  he  trudged  on  with  the  child  in 
his  arms  and  the  bewildering  snow  beating 
and  clotting  on  them  both  will  never  be 
known.  W.  V.,  with  a  spread  of  his  plaid 
over  her  face,  fell  into  a  fitful  slumber,  from 
which  she  was  awakened  by  a  fall  and  a 
scramble. 

"  You  poor  helpless  bairn,"  he  groaned, 
"  have  I  hurt  you?  " 

W.  V.  was  not  hurt ;  the  snow-wreath  had 
been  too  deep  for  that. 

"  Well,  you  see,  W.  V.,  we  came  a  lament- 
able cropper  that  time,"  said  Littlejohn.  "  I 
think  we  must  rest  a  httle,  for  I  'm  fagged 
out.  You  see,  VV.  V.,  there  is  no  grass  to 
whisper,  '  This  way,  this  way ; '  and  there  are 
no  furry  things  to  say,  '  Follow  me ; '  and  the 
oak-men  are  all  asleep ;  and  —  and,  God 
forgive  me,  I  don't  know  what  to  do  !  " 

143 


W.   V. 

"Are  you  crying,  Uncle  Big- John?" 
asked  W.  V. ;  for  "  his  voice  sounded  just 
hke  as  if  lie  was  crying,"  she  explained 
afterwards. 

"  Crying  !  no,  my  dear ;  there 's  no  need 
to  kiss  the  crystal  tear  away  !  But,  you  see, 
I  'm  tired,  and  it 's  jolly  cold  and  dark  ;  and, 
as    Mother  Earth  is  good  to  little  children 

"     He   paused  to  see   how  he  should 

be  best  able  to  make  her  understand.  "  You 
remember  how  that  little  girl  that  was  lost 
went  to  sleep  in  a  hollow  of  the  grass  and 
heard  the  Mother  talking  to  her?  Well, 
you  must  just  lie  snug  like  that,  you 
see." 

"But  I'm  not  lost." 

"  Of  course,  you  're  not  lost.  Only  you 
must  lie  snug  and  sleep  till  it  stops  snowing, 
and  I  '11  sit  beside  you." 

Littlejohn  took  off  his  plaid  and  his  thick 
tweed  jacket.  He  wrapped  the  child  in  the 
latter,  and  half  covered  her  with  snow. 
With  the  plaid,  propped  up  with  his  stick,  he 
made  a  sort  of  tent  to  shelter  her  from  the 
driving  flakes.  He  then  lay  down  beside  her 
till  she  fell  asleep. 

144 


Her  Friend   Littlejohn 

"  It 's  only  mother,  dearie ;  mother  cud- 
dHng  her  Uttle  girl ;  sleep-a-sleep." 

Then  he  must  have  arisen  shuddering  in 
his  shirt-sleeves,  and  have  lashed  his  arms 
again  and  again  about  his  body  for  warmth. 

In  the  hollow  in  which  they  were  found, 
the  snow-wreath,  with  the  exception  of  a 
narrow  passage  a  few  feet  in  width  where 
they  had  blundered  in,  was  impassably  deep 
on  all  sides.  All  round  and  round  the 
hollow  the  snow  was  very  much  trampled. 

Worn  out  with  fatigue  and  exposure,  the 
strong  man  had  at  last  lain  down  beside  the 
child.     His  hand  was  under  his  head. 

In  that  desperate  circular  race  against  cold 
and  death  he  must  have  been  struck  by  his 
own  resemblance  to  the  wild  creatures  pad- 
ding round  and  round  in  their  cages  in  the 
Zoo,  and  what  irony  he  must  have  felt  in 
the  counsel  of  the  wee  green  oak-man. 
Well,  he  had  followed  the  advice,  had  he 
not?  And,  when  he  awoke,  would  he  not 
find  that  he  had  come  out  at  the  other  side? 

Hours  afterwards,  when  at  last  Littlejohn 
slowly  drifted  back  to  consciousness,  he  lay 
10  145 


W.  V. 

staring  for  a  moment  or  two  with  a  dazed  be- 
wildered brain.  Then  into  his  eyes  there 
flashed  a  look  of  horror,  and  he  struggled  to 
pull  himself  together.  "  My  God,  my  God, 
where  is  the  Infant?"  he  groaned. 

W.  V.  was  hurried  into  the  room,  oblivi- 
ously radiant.  With  a  huge  sigh  Littlejohn 
sank  back  smiling,  and  held  out  his  hand  to 
her.  Whereupon  W.  V.,  moving  it  gently 
aside,  went  up  close  to  him  and  spoke,  half 
in  inquiry  half  in  remonstrance,  "  You  're  no^ 
going  to  be  died,  are  you?" 


146 


HER    BED-TIME 


'47 


HER  BED-TIME 

IN  these  winter  evenings,  thanks  to  the 
Great  Northern,  and  to  Hesperus  who 
brings  all  things  home,  I  reach  my  door- 
step about  half-an-hour  before  W.  V.'s  bed- 
time. A  sturdy,  rosy,  flaxen-haired  little 
body  opens  to  my  well-known  knock,  takes 
a  kiss  on  the  tip  of  her  nose,  seizes  my  um- 
brella, and  makes  a  great  show  of  assisting 
me  with  my  heavy  overcoat.  She  leads  me 
into  the  dining-room,  gets  my  slippers,  runs 
my  bootlaces  into  Gordian  knots  in  her  im- 
petuous zeal,  and  announces  that  she  has 
"  set  "  the  tea.  At  table  she  slips  furtively 
on  to  my  knee,  and  we  are  both  happy  till  a 
severe  voice,  "  Now,  father  !  "  reminds  us  of 
the  reign  of  law  in  general,  and  of  that  law 
in  particular  which  enacts  that  it  is  shocking 
in  little   girls  to  want  everything  they  see, 

149 


W.  V. 

and  most  reprehensible  in  elderly  people 
(I  elderly  !)   to  encourage  them. 

We  are  glad  to  escape  to  the  armchair, 
where,  after  I  have  lit  my  pipe  and  W.  V. 
has  blown  the  elf  of  flame  back  to  fairyland, 
we  conspire  —  not  overtly  indeed,  but  each 
in  his  deep  mind  —  how  we  shall  baffle  do- 
mestic tyranny  and  evade,  if  but  for  a  few 
brief  minutes  of  recorded  time,  the  cubicular 
moment  and  the  inevitable  hand  of  the  bath- 
maiden. 

The  critical  instant  occurs  about  half-way 
through  my  first  pipe,  and  VV.  V.'s  devices 
for  respite  or  escape  are  at  once  innumerable 
and  transparently  ingenious.  I  admit  my 
connivance  without  a  blush,  though  I  may 
perchance  weakly  observe  :  "  One  sees  so 
little  of  her,  mother;  "  for  how  delightful  it 
is  when  she  sings  or  recites  —  and  no  one 
would  be  so  rude  as  to  interrupt  a  song  or 
recitation  —  to  watch  the  little  hands  wavin? 
in  "  the  air  so  blue,"  the  little  fingers  flick- 
ering above  her  head  in  imitation  of  the 
sparks  at  the  forge,  the  little  arms  nursing 
an  imaginary  weeping  dolly,  the  blue  eyes  lit 
up  with  excitement  as  they  gaze  abroad  from 

15° 


Her   Bed-time 

the    cherry-tree    into    the   "  foreign   lands " 
beyond  the  garden  wall. 

She  has  much  to  tell  me  about  the  day's 
doings.  Yes,  she  has  been  clay-modelling. 
I  have  seen  some  of  her  marvellous  baskets 
of  fruit  and  birds'  nests  and  ivy  leaves; 
but  to-day  she  has  been  doing  what  dear 
old  Mother  Nature  did  in  one  of  her  happy 
moods  some  millenniums  ago  —  making  a 
sea  with  an  island  in  it ;  and  around  the  sea 
mountains,  one  a  volcano  with  a  crater  blaz- 
ing with  red  crayon ;  and  a  river  with  a 
bridge  across  it ;  quite  a  boldly  conceived 
and  hospitable  fragment  of  a  new  planet. 
Of  course  Miss  Jessie  helped  her,  but  she 
would  soon  be  able,  all  by  herself,  to  create 
a  new  world  in  which  there  should  be  ever- 
blossoming  spring  and  a  golden  age,  and 
fairies  to  make  the  impossible  common- 
place. W.  V.  does  not  put  it  in  that  way, 
but  those,  I  fancy,  would  be  the  character- 
istics of  a  universe  of  her  happy  and  inno- 
cent contriving. 

In  her  early  art  days  W.  V.  was  distinctly 
Darwinian.  Which  was  the  cow,  and  which 
the  house,  and  which  the  lady,  was  always  a 


W.  V. 

nice  question.  One  could  differentiate  with 
the  aid  of  a  few  strokes  of  natural  selection, 
but  essentially  they  were  all  of  the  same  pro- 
toplasm. Her  explanations  of  her  pictures 
afforded  curious  instances  of  the  easy  magic 
with  which  a  breath  of  her  little  soul  made 
all  manner  of  dry  bones  live.  I  reproached 
her  once  with  wasting  paper  which  she  had 
covered  with  a  whirling  scribble.  "  Why, 
father,"  she  exclaimed  with  surprise,  "  that  's 
the  north  wind  !  "  Her  latest  masterpiece 
is  a  drawing  of  a  stone  idol ;  but  it  is  only 
exhibited  on  condition  that,  when  you  see  it. 
you  must  "  shake  with  fright." 

At  a  Kindergarten  one  learns,  of  course, 
many  things  besides  clay-modelling,  draw- 
ing, and  painting  :  poetry,  for  instance,  and 
singing,  and  natural  history ;  drill  and  ball- 
playing  and  dancing.  And  am  I  not  curious 
—  this  with  a  glance  at  the  clock  which  is  on 
the  stroke  of  seven  —  to  hear  the  new  verse 
of  her  last  French  song?  Shall  she  recite 
"  Purr,  purr  !  "  or  "  The  Swing  "  ?  Or  would 
it  not  be  an  agreeable  change  to  have  her 
sing  "Up  into  the  Cherry  Tree,"  or  "The 
Busy  Blacksmith  "  ? 

152 


Her   Bed-time 

Any  or  all  of  these  would  be  indeed  de- 
lectable, but  parting  is  the  same  sweet  sorrow 
at  the  last  as  at  the  first.  However,  we  shall 
have  one  song.  And  after  that  a  recitation 
by  King  Alfred !  The  king  is  the  most 
diminutive  of  china  dolls  dressed  in  green 
velvet.  She  steadies  him  on  the  table  by 
one  leg,  and  crouches  down  out  of  sight 
while  he  goes  through  his  performance. 
The  Fauntleroy  hair  and  violet  eyes  are  the 
eyes  and  hair  of  King  Alfred,  but  the  voice 
is  the  voice  of  W.  V. 

When  she  has  recited  and  sung  I  draw  her 
between  my  knees  and  begin  :  "  There  was 
once  a  very  naughty  little  girl,  and  her  name 
was  W.  V." 

"  No,  father,  a  good  little  girl." 

"  Well,  there  was  a  good  little  girl,  and 
her  name  was  Gladys." 

"  No,  father,  a  ^^^^  little  girl  called  W.  V." 

«  Well,  a  good  little  girl  called  W.  V. ;  and 
she  was  '  quickly  obedient ' ;  and  when  her 
father  said  she  was  to  go  to  bed,  she  said  : 
'Yes,  father,'  and  she  just  fiew,  and  gave  no 
trouble." 

"  And  did  her  father  come  up  and  kiss  her  ?  " 

153 


W.  V. 

"  Why,  of  course,  he  did." 

A  few  minutes  later  she  is  kneeling  on  the 
bed  with  her  head  nestled  in  my  breast, 
repeating  her  evening  prayer : 

"  Dear  feather,  whom  I  cannot  see, 
Smile  down  from  heaven  on  little  me. 

Let  angels  through  the  darkness  spread 
Their  holy  wings  about  my  bed. 

And  keep  me  safe,  because  I  am 
The  heavenly  Shepherd's  little  lamb. 

Dear  God  our  Father,  watch  and  keep 
Father  and  mother  while  they  sleep  ; 

"  and  bless  Dennis,  and  Ronnie,  and  Uncle 
John,  and  Auntie  Bonnie,  and  Phyllis  (did 
Phyllis  used  to  squint  when  she  was  a  baby  ? 
Poor  Phyllis  !)  ;  and  Madame,  and  Lucille 
(she  is  only  a  tiny  little  child ;  a  quarter 
past  three  years  or  something  like  that)  : 
and  Ivo  and  Wilfrid  (he  has  bronchitis 
very  badly;  he  can't  come  out  this  winter ; 
aren't  you  sorry  for  him?  Really  a  dear 
little  boy)." 

"  Any  one  else  ?  " 

154 


Her  Bed-time 

"  Auntie  Edie    and  Grandma.     {^He  will 
have  plenty  to  do,  won't  He?)  " 
"And  '  Teach  me  '  "  —  I  suggest. 

"  Teach  me  to  do  what  I  am  told, 
And  help  me  to  be  good  as  gold." 

And  a  whisper  comes  from  the  pillow  as  I 
tuck  in  the  eider-down  : 

"  Now  He  will  be  wondering  whether  I 
am  going  to  be  a  good  girl." 


155 


VARIOUS   VERSES 


157 


EAST   OF   EDEN 

FAR  down  upon  the  plain  the  large  round 
moon 
Sank    red    in   jungle    mist;    but    on   the 
heights 

The  cold  clear  darkness  burned  with  restless 
stars  : 

And,  restless  as  the  stars,  the  grim  old  King 

Paced  with  fierce  choleric  strides  the  mon- 
strous ridge 

Of  boulders  piled  to  make  the  city  wall. 

Muttering  his  wrath  within  his  cloudy  beard, 

He  moved,  and  paused,  and  turned.     The 
starlight  caught 

The   huge  bent  gold   that  ringed  his  giant 
head, 

159 


W.  V. 

Gleamed    on    the   jewel-fringed    vast    lion- 
fells 
That  clothed  his  stature,  ran  in  dusky  play 
Along  the  ponderous  bronze  that  armed  his 
spear. 


He    fiercely  scanned  the   East  for  signs  of 

dawn; 
Then  shook  his    clenched    hand  above    his 

head, 
And  blazed  with  savage  eyes  and  brow  thrown 

back 
To  front  the  awful  Presence  he  addressed  : 

"  Slay  and  make  end ;  or  take  some  mortal 
form 

That  I  may  strive  with  Thee  !     Art  Thou  so 
strong 

And  yet  must  smite  me  out  of  Thine  Un- 
seen? 

Long  centuries  have  passed  since  Thou  didst 
place 

Thy  mark  upon  me,  lest  at  any  time 

Men  finding  me    should  slay  me.     I    have 
grown 

i6o 


East  of  Eden 

Feeble  and  hoary  with  the  toil  of  years  — 
An  aged  palsy  —  now,  alas,  no  more 
That  erst  colossal  adamant  whereon 
Thine   hand    engraved    its    vengeance.     Be 

Thou  just, 
And  answer  when  I  charge  Thee.     Have  I 

blenched 
Before  Thy  fury ;  have  I  bade  Thee  spare ; 
Hath  Thy  long   torture  wrung  one  sob   of 

pain. 
One  cry  of  supplication  from  my  mouth  ? 
But  Thou  hast  made  Thyself  unseen ;    hast 

lain 
In  ambush  to  afflict  me.     Day  and  night 
Thou   hast   been   watchful.     Thy  vindictive 

eyes 
Have  known  no  slumber.     Make  Thyself  a 

man 
That  I    may  seize  Thee   in   my  grips,  and 

strive 
But  once  on  equal  terms  with  Thee  —  but 

once. 
Or   send    Thine    angel   with    his    sword   of 

fire  — 
But  no  ;  not  him  !     Come  Thou,  come  Thou 

Thyself; 
II  i6i 


W.  V. 

Come  forth  from  Thine  Invisible,  and  face 
In    mortal    guise      the     mortal     Thou    has 
plagued  !  " 

The  race  of  giants,  sunk  in  heavy  sleep 
Within  the  cirque  of  those  cyclopean  walls, 
Heard  as  it  were  far  thunder  in  their  dreams  ; 
But  answer  came  the^-e  none  from  cloud  or 

star. 
Then  cried  the  aged  King ; 

"  A  curse  consume 
Thy  blind  night  fevered  with  the  glare  of  stars, 
Wild  voices,  and  the  agony  of  dreams  ! 
Would  it  were  day  !  ^'' 

At  last  the  gleam  of  dawn 
Swept  in  a  long  grey  shudder  from  the  East, 
Then  reddened  o'er  the  misty  jungle  tracts. 
The  guards  about  the  massive  city  gates 
Fell  back  with  hurried  whispers  :  "  'T  is  the 

King  !  " 
And  forth,  with  great  white  beard  and  gold- 
girt  brows, 
Huge  spear,  and  jewelled  fells,  the  giant  strode 

To  slake  his  rage  among  the  beasts  of  prey. 

162 


East  of  Eden 

The  fierce  white  splendour  of  a  tropic  noon ; 
A  sweltering  waste  of  jungle,  breathing  flame  ; 
Tiie  sky  one  burning  sapphire  ! 

By  a  spring 
Within  the  shadow  of  a  bluff  of  rock 
The  hoary  giant  rested.     At  his  feet 
The  cool   green    mosses    edged    the  crystal 

pool, 
And  flowers  of  blue  and  gold  and  rose-red 

lulled 
The  weary  eye  with  colour.     As  he  sat 
There    rose    a    clamour    from    the    sea    of 

canes ; 
He.  heard  a  crash  of  boughs,  a  rush  of  feet ; 
And,   lo  !   there  bounded  from   the  tangled 

growth 
A  panting  tiger  mad  with  pain  and  rage. 
The    beast    sprang  roaring,    but    the    giant 

towered 
And  pashed  with   one  fell  buffet   bone  and 

brain ; 
Then  staggered  with  a  groan,  for,  keen  and 

swift, 
At  that  same  instant  from  the  jungle  flew 
A   shaft   which   to   the    feather  pierced  his 
frame, 

163 


W.   V. 

Shrill  cries  of  horror  maddened  round  the 

bluff: 
"  Oh,  Elohim,  't  is  Cain  the  King,  the  King  !  " 
And   weeping,    tearing    hair,    and    wringing 

hands, 
About  hiin  raved  his  lawless  giant  brood. 


But  Cain  spoke  slowly  with  a  ghastly  smile  : 
"  Peace,  and  give  heed,  for  now  I  am  but  dead. 
Let  no  man  be  to  blame  for  this  my  death ; 
Yea,   swear  a  solemn    oath  that  none  shall 

harm 
A  hair  of  him  who  gives  me  my  release. 
Come  hither,  boy  !  " 

And,  weeping,  Lamech  went 
And  stood  before  the  face  of  Cain  ;  and  Cain 
Who    pressed    a    hand    against    his    rushing 

wound 
Reddened  his  grandson's  brow  and  kissed  his 

cheek  : 
*'  The  blood  of  Cain  alight  on  him  who  lifts 
A  hand  against  thy  life.    My  spear,  boys  !    So. 
Let  no  foot  follow.     Cain  must  die  alone. 
Let  no  man  seek  me  till  ye  see  in  heaven 
A  sign,  and  know  that  Cain  is  dead." 

164 


East  of  Eden 

He  smiled, 
And  from  the  hollow  of  his  hand  let  fall 
A  crimson  rain  upon  the  crystal  spring, 
Which  caught  the  blood  in  glassy  ripple  and 

whirl, 
And  reddened  moss  and  boulder. 

Swift  of  stride, 
With  gold-girt  brow  thrown  back  to  front  the 

Unseen, 
The  hoary  giant  through  the  jungle  waste 
Plunged,  muttering  in  his  beard ;    and   on- 
ward pressed 
Through  the    deep  tangle   of  the   trackless 

growth 
To  reach  some  lair,  where  hidden  and  un- 
heard 
His    savage    soul    in    its    last    strife    might 

cope 
With  God  —  perchance  one  moment  visible. 


A  sweltering  tract  of  jungle,  breathing  flame  ; 
A  fiery  silence ;  all  the  depth  of  heaven 
One  blinding  sapphire  ! 

Watching  by  the  cliff, 
The  giant  brood  stood  waiting  for  the  sign. 

165 


W.  V. 

Behold  !  a  speck,  high  in  the  blazing  blue, 
Hung  black  —  a  single  speck  above  the  waste  ; 
Hung  poised  an  hour ;  then  dropped  through 

leagues  of  air, 
Plumb  as  a  stone  ;  and  as  it  dropped  they  saw 
Through  leagues  of  high  blue  air,  to  north 

and  south, 
To  east  and  west,  black  specks  that  sprang 

from  space. 
And  then  long  sinuous  lines  of  distant  spots 
Which    flew  converging  —  growing,  as   they 

flew, 
To  slanting  streams  and  palpitating  swarm? ; 
Which  flew  converging  out  of  all  the  heavens. 
And  blackened,  as  they  flew,    the  sapphire 

blaze, 
And   jarred    the  fiery  hush  with  winnowing 

wings ; 
Which  flew  converging  on  a  single  point 
Deep   in    the    jungle   waste,   and,    as    they 

swooped, 
Paused  in  the  last  long  slide  with  dangling 

claws. 
Then  dropped  like  stone. 

Thus  knew  the  giant  brood 
That  Cain  was  dead. 

166 


East  of  Eden 

Beside  a  swamp  they  found 
Hoar  hair,  a  litter  of  white  colossal  bones, 
Ensanguined  shreds  of  jewelled  lion-fells, 
The  huge  gold  crown  and  ponderous  spear 

of  Cain, 
And,  fixed  between  the  ribs,  the  fatal  shaft 
Which  Lamech  shot  unwitting ;  but  against 
The  life  of  Lamech  no  man  lifted  hand. 


167 


GOODWIN    SANDS 

DID  you  ever  read  or  hear 
How  the  Aid —  (God  bless  the  Aid! 
More    earnest  prayer   than  that  was   never 

prayed.) 
How  the  lifeboat,  Aid  of  Ramsgate,  saved  the 
London  Fusilier  ? 


With  a  hundred  souls  on  board, 
With  a  hundred  and  a  score, 

—  She  was  fast  on  Goodwin  Sands. 

—  (May  the  Lord 
Have  pity  on  all  hands  — 

Crew    and    captain  —  when    a    ship  *s    on 
Goodwin   Sands  !) 
1 68 


Goodwin   Sands 

In  the  smother  and  the  roar 

Of  a  very  hell  of  waters  —  hard  and  fast  — 

She  shook  beneath  the  stroke 

Of  each  billow  as  it  broke, 

And  the  clouds  of  spray  were  mingled  with 

the  clouds  of  swirling  smoke 
As  the  blazing  barrels  bellowed  in  the  blast ! 


And   the  women  and  the  little    ones  were 

frozen  dumb  with  fear  ; 
And  the  strong  men  waited  grimly  for  the 

last ; 
When  —  as    clocks   were    striking    two    in 

Ramsgate  town  — 
The  little  Aid  came  down, 
The  Aid,  the  plucky  Aid — 
The  Aid  flew  down  the  gale 
With    the  glimmer  of  the   moon  upon  her 

sail; 
And  the  people  thronged  to  leeward ;  stared 

and  prayed  — 
Prayed    and    stared    with    tearless    eye    and 

breathless  lip, 
While  the  little  boat  drew  near. 
Ay,  and  then  there  rose  a  shout  — 

169 


W.  V. 

A  clamour,  half  a  sob  and  half  a  cheer  — 
As  the  boatmen  flung  the  lifeboat  anchor  out, 
And  the  gallant  Aid  sheered  in  beneath  the 

ship. 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  London  Fusilier! 


"  We  can  carry  ?nay  be  thirty  at  a  trip  " 

(Hurrah  for  Ramsgate  town  !  ) 

"  Quick,  the  women  and  the  children  /  " 


O'er  the  side 
Two  sailors,  slung  in  bowlines,  hung  to  help 

the  women  down  — 
Poor  women,  shrinking  back  in  their  dismay- 
As  they  saw  their  ark  of  refuge,  smothered 

up  in  spray, 
Ranging  wildly  this  and  that  way  in  the  rac- 
ing of  the  tide ; 
As  they  watched  it  rise  and  drop,  with  its 

crew  of  stalwart  men, 
When  a  huge  sea  swung  it  upward  to   the 

bulwarks  of  the  ship, 
And,  sweeping  by  in  thunder,  sent  it  plung- 
ing down  again. 
170 


Goodwin   Sands 

Still  they  shipped  them  —  nine-and-tvventy. 

(God  be  blessed  ! ) 
When  a  man  with  glaring  eyes 
Rushed  up  frantic  to  the  gangway  with  a  cry 

choked  in  his  throat  — 
Thrust  a  bundle  in  a  sailor's  ready  hands. 


Honest  Jack,  he  understands  — 

Why,  a  blanket  for  a  woman  in  the  boat ! 

"Catch  it,  Bilir' 

And  he  flung  it  with  a  will ; 

And  the  boatman  turned  and  caught  it,  bless 

him  !  —  caught  it,  tho'  it  slipped, 
And,  even  as  he  caught  it,  heard  an  infant's 

cries, 
While  a  woman  shrieked,  and  snatched  it  to 

her  breast  — 
"  My  baby  !  " 

So  the  thirtieth  passenger  was  shipped  ! 


Twice,  and  thrice,  and  yet  again 
Flew  the  lifeboat  down  the  gale 
With  the  moonlight  on  her  sail  — 
With  the  sunrise  on  her  sail  — 

171 


W.  V. 

(God  bless  the  lifeboat  Aid  and  all  her  men  !) 

Brought  her  thirty  at  a  trip 

Thro'  the  hell  of  Goodwin  waters   as   they 

raged  around  the  ship, 
Saved  each  soul  aboard  the  London  Fusilier ! 


If  you  live  to  be  a  hundred,  you  will  ne'er  — 

You  will  ne'er  in  all  your  life, 

Until  you  die,  my  dear, 

Be  nearer  to  your  death  by  land  or  sea  1 


Was  she  there? 

Who  ?  —  my  wife  ? 

Why,  the  baby  in  the  blanket  —  that  was  she  ! 


17: 


TRAFALGAR 

OTHE  merry  bells  of  Chester,  ancient 
Chester  on  the  Dee  ! 
On    that    glittering    autumn    morning, 

eighteen    five. 
Every   Englishman    was     glad    to     be 
alive. 
It  was  good  to  breathe  this  English  air,  to  see 
English  earth,  with  autumn  field  and  redden- 
ing tree, 
And    to  hear  the  bells   of  Chester,  ancient 
Chester  on  the  Dee. 


173 


W.   V. 

For  like  morning-stars  together,  sweet  and 
shrill, 
In  a  blithe  recurrent  cycle 
Sang  St.  Peter  and  St.  Michael, 

John  the  Baptist  and  St.  Mary  on  the  Hill ; 

And  the  quick  exulting  changes  of  their  peal 

Made  the   heavens  above  them   laugh,  and 
the  jubilant  city  reel. 

In  the    streets   the    crowds   were    cheering. 
Like  a  shout 

From  each  spire  the  bickering  bunting  rol- 
licked out. 


O  that  buoyant  autumn  morning,   eighteen 

five, 
Every  Englishman  rejoiced  to  be  alive  ; 
And  the  heart  of  England  throbbed  from  sea 

to  sea 
As  the  joy-bells  clashed  in  Chester,   jovial 

Chester  on  the  Dee. 


Hark,    in    pauses    of  the    revel  —  sole     and 

slow  — 
Old  St.  Werburgh  swung  a  heavy  note  of  woe  ! 

174 


Trafalgar 

Hark,    between   the   jocund    peals   a  single 

toll, 
Stern  and  muffled,  marked  the  passing  of  a 

soul  ! 
English    hearts    were    sad    that    day  as  sad 

could  be ; 
English  eyes  so  filled  with  tears  they  scarce 

could  see ; 
And  all  the  joy  was  dashed  with  grief  in 

ancient  Chester  on  the  Dee  ! 


Loss  and  triumph  —  joy  and  sorrow!     Far 

away 
Drave    the    great    fight's    wreckage    down 

Trafalgar  Bay-. 
O  that  glorious  autumn  morning,  eighteen  five. 
Every  Englishman  was  proud  to  be  alive  ! 
For  the  power  of  France  was  broken  on  the 

sea  — 
But  ten  sail  left  of  her  thirty  sail  and  three. 
Yet  sad  were  English  men  as  sad  could  be, 
For  that,  somewhere  o'er  the  foreign  wave, 

they  knew 
Home  to  English  ground  and  grass   the  dust 

of  Nelson  drew. 

175 


W.  V. 

Would  to  God  that  on  that  morning,  eighteen 

five, 
England's  greatest  man  of  all  had  been  alive, 
If  but  to  breathe  this  English  air,  to  see 
English  earth,  with  autumn  field  and  yellow- 
ing tree, 
And    to    hear    the    bells    of  Chester,  joyful 
Chester  on  the  Dee  ! 


176 


VIGNETTES 


177 


THE  WANDERER 


I  MET  a  waif  i'  the  hills  at  close  of  day. 
He  begged  an  alms ;  I  thought  to  say 
him  nay. 
What  was  he?     "  Sir,  a  little  dust,"  said  he, 
"  Which  Ufe  blows  up  and  down,  and  death 
will  lay." 


I  gave  —  for  love  of  beast  and  hill  and  tree, 
And  all  the  dust  that  has  been  and  shall  be. 


179 


THE   WANDERER 


n 


HE  knows  no  home  ;  he  only  knows 
Hunger  and  cold  and  pain ; 
The  four  winds  are  his  bedfellows  ; 
His  sleep  is  dashed  with  rain. 


'T  is  naught  to  him  who  fails,  who  thrives ; 

He  neither  hopes  nor  fears ; 
Some  dim  primeval  impulse  drives 

His  footsteps  down  the  years. 


180 


The   Wanderer 

He  could  not,  if  he  would,  forsake 
Lone  road  and  field  and  tree. 

Yet,  think  !  it  takes  a  God  to  make 
E'en  such  a  waif  as  he. 


And  once  a  maiden,  asked  for  bread, 
Saw,  as  she  gave  her  dole, 

No  friendless  vagrant,  but,  instead. 
An  indefeasible  Soul, 


i8i 


THE   SCARECROW 


HAIL  Goodman-gossip  of  the  com  ! 
When  boughs  are  green  and  furrows 
sprout 
And  blossom  muffles  every  thorn, 

Poor  soul !  the  farmer  boards  him  out. 


Men  think,  grim  wight,  his  rags  affright 
The  winged  thieves  from  root  and  ear ; 

But  on  his  hat  pert  sparrows  light  — 

Crows  have  been  friends  too  long  to  fear ! 


The  schoolboy's  sling  he  heedeth  not ; 

No  rancour  nerves  those  palsied  hands ; 
In  shocking  hat  and  ancient  coat, 

A  crazed  and  patient  wretch  he  stands. 
182 


The  Scarecrow 

Without  a  murmur  in  the  wheat, 

Till  fields  are  shorn  aftd  harvest 's  won, 

He  suffers  cold,  he  suffers  heat, 

From  chilly  stars  ap4  scorching  sun. 


Though  men  forget,  he  dreameth  yet 
How  in  the  golden  past  he  stood, 

'Mid  flowers  and  wine,  a  shape  divine 
Of  marble  or  of  carven  wood ; 


How,  in  the  loveliness  and  peace 
Of  that  blithe  age  and  radiant  clime, 

He  was  a  garden-god  of  Greece. 

Oh,  vanished  world  !     Oh,  fleeting  time  ! 


Gaunt  simulacrum  —  ghost  forlorn  — 
Grey  exile  from  a  splendid  past  — 

Last  god  (in  rags)  of  a  creed  outworn  — 
If  pity  '11  help  thee,  mine  thou  hast ! 


183 


THE   HAUNTED   BRIDGE 


WITH  high-pitCi-^d  arch,  low  parapet, 
And  narrow  thoroughfare,  it  stands 
As  strong  as  when  the  mortar  set 
Beneath  the  Roman  mason's  hands. 


An  ancient  ivy  grips  its  walls, 

Tall  grasses  tuft  its  coping-stones ; 

Beneath,  through  citron  shadow,  falls 
The  stream  in  drowsy  undertones. 

184 


The  Haunted  Bridge 

No  road  leads  hence.     The  stonechat  flits 
Along  green  fallow  grey  with  stone  ; 

But  here  a  dark- eyed  urchin  sits, 

To  whom  the  Painted  Men  were  known. 


Hush  !  do  not  move,  but  only  look. 

When  sunny  days  are  long  and  fine 
This  Roman  truant  baits  a  hook, 

Drops  o'er  the  keystone  here  a  line. 


And,  dangling  sandalled  feet,  looks  down 
To  see  the  swift  trout  dart  and  gleam  — 

Or  scarcely  see  them,  hanging  brown 

With  heads  against  the  clear  brown  stream. 


185 


THE   STONE   AGE 

''T^WAS  not  a  vision  !     Yet  the  oak 
J.       O'erarched  the  paleolithic  Age  ; 

And  homesteads  of  a  pigmy  folk 
Were  clustered  'neath  its  foliage. 


Secreted  in  that  sylvan  space, 

To  archaeologist  unknown, 
Stood,  reared  by  some  untutored  race, 

Strange  rings  and  avenues  of  stone. 


The  little  thorp  deserted  seemed  ; 

What  prey  had  lured  the  tribe  afar? 
One  figure,  lingering,  sat  and  dreamed, 

As  lonely  as  the  evening  star. 
i86 


The  Stone  Age 

Bright-haired,  blue-eyed,  with  naked  feet, 
And  young  face  ht  with  rosy  blood. 

She  rocked  her  babe,  and  dreamed  the  sweet 
Primeval  dream  of  motherhood. 


A  wondrous  babe,  that  once  had  grown 
A  branch  among  the  branches  green  - 

For  nurslings  of  the  Age  of  Stone 
Are  mainly  bairns  of  wood,  I  ween. 


A  mother  strangely  young,  and  sage 
Beyond  the  summers  she  had  told. 

For  mothers  of  that  ancient  Age 
Are  usually  five  years  old. 


God  bless  thy  heart  maternal,  bless 

Thy  bower  of  stone,  thy  sheltering  tree. 

Thou  small  prospective  ancestress 
Of  generations  yet  to  be  ! 


187 


SEA-PICTURES 


BLITHE  morning ;  sun  and  sea  !     Zone 
beyond  zone, 
Blue  frolic  waves  and  gold  clouds  softly  blown. 
One  half  the  globe  a  sapphire  glass  which 

swings 
DoubUng  the  sun. 


No  sail.     No  wink  of  wings. 
No  haze  of  land. 


1 88 


Sea-Pictures 

Look  !  who  comes  wafted  here  — 
What  lone  yet  all  unfearful  mariner? 
You  cannot  see  him  ?     No ;   he  mocks  the 

sight  — 
Mid  such  immensities  so  mere  a  mite. 


Look  close  !     That  tiniest  speck  of  brownish 

red, 
Perched  on  his  single  subtle  spider-thread  ! 


Trust,  little  aeronaut,  thy  filmy  sail. 
Blow  wind  !  the  reef  and  palm-tree  shall  not 
fail. 


189 


SEA-PICTURES 


II 


ENORMOUS  sea  ;  immeasurable  night .' 
The   shoreless  waters,  heaving  spec- 
tral-white, 
Vibrate  with  showers  and  chains  of  golden 
sparks. 


The    black   boat   leaves   a   track   of  flame. 

Beneath 
Run  trails  of  blazing  em^ald,  where  the  sharks 
Cross  and  re-cross.     In  many  a  starry  wreath 
Innumerable  medusae  shine  and  float. 


igo 


Sea-Pictures 

Great  luminaries,  through  the  blue-green  air, 
Gleam  on  the  face  of  one  who  slowly  dies. 
All  through  the  night  two  cavernous  glazed 

eyes 
Look  blankly  upward  in  a  rigid  stare. 


O  Father  in  heaven,  he  cannot  speak  Thy 

name ; 
Take  pity  for  the  sake  of  Christ,  Thy  son  ! 


There  is  no  answer,  none.     No  answer,  none. 


Crossing,  re-crossing  underneath  the  boat, 
The  lean  sharks  w^eave  their  web  of  emerald 
flame. 


191 


MOONLIGHT 


SWEET  moon,  endreaming  tower  and  tree, 
Is  thy  pathetic  radiance  thrown 
From  ice-cold  wealds  and  cirques  of  stone  — 
Hush'd  moors  where  life  has  ceased  to  be  ? 


Did  grass,  long  ages  back,  and  flowers 
Grow  there  ?     Did  living  waters  run  ? 
Did  happy  creatures  bless  the  sun 
And  greet  with  joy  this  world  of  ours  ? 


192 


Moonlight 

And,  earlier  yet,  in  one  starred  zone. 
Did  this  bright  planet  sweep  through  space 
Glebe  of  our  glebe,  race  of  our  race  — 
A  part  and  parcel  of  our  own? 


O  moonlight  silvering  tower  and  tree  ! 

O  part  of  my  world  torn  away, 

Part  of  my  life,  now  lifeless  clay, 

My  dead,  shine  too  —  shine  down  on  me 


13  193 


GREEN    PASTURES 


WHEN    springing   meads    are    freshly 
dight, 
And   trees    new-leafed    throw    scarce    a 
shadow, 
The  green  earth  shows  no  fairer  sight 

Than  soft- eyed  kine  and  blowing  meadow. 
Too  calm  for  care,  too  slow  for  mirth, 
Amid  the  shower,  amid  the  gleam, 
The  great  mild  mother-creatures  seem 
Half-waking  forms  o'  the  dreamy  earth. 

194 


Green  Pastures 

And  down  the  pathway  through  the  grass 
To  school  the  merry  children  pass, 
Singing  a  rhyme  in  the  April  morns, 
How  —  There  ^s    red  for   the  furrows,   and 

white  for  the  daisies, 
Brown  eyes  for  the  brooks,  for  the  trees 

crumpled  horns  ! 


When  quivering  leaves,  and  oes  of  light 
Between  the  leaves,  the  deep  sward  dapple, 

When  may-boughs  cream  in  curdling  white. 
And  maids  envy  the  bloom  o'  the  apple, 

The  great  mild  mother-creatures  lie, 
And  grow,  in  absence  of  the  sun. 
One  with  the  moon  and  stars,  and  one 

With  silvery  cloud  and  darkest  sky. 


And  down  the  pathway  through  the  grass 
To  school  the  merry  children  pass. 
Singing  a  rhyme  in  the  morns  of  June, 
How  —  There  's  white  for  the  cloudlets,  and 
black  for  the  darkness. 
And  tivo  polished  horns  for  the  sweet  sickle 
moon. 

19s 


THE   LITTLE   DIPPER 

LITFLE  Dipper,  piping  sweet 
in  the  shrewd  mid- winter  weather ; 
Nesting  in  the  linn,  where  spray 

splashes  nest  and  sprinkles  feather  ; 


'Neath  the  fringes  of  the  ice, 

down  the  burn-side,  blithely  diving; 
Piping,  piping  with  full  throat,  — 

bite  the  frost  or  be  snow  driving  : 


Life's  white  winter  comes  apace ; 

oh,  but  gaily  shall  I  bide  it 
If  my  bosom,  like  thy  nest, 

house  a  singing-bird  inside  it ! 

196 


IN   THE   HILLS 

HIS   hoar  breath  stings  with  rime    the 
skater's  face. 
Mirrored  in  jet,  beneath  his  hissing  feet, 
The  stars  swarm  past,  and  radiate  as  they 
fleet, 
The  immemorial  cold  of  cosmic  space. 


197 


NATURE'S   MAGIC 

GIVE  her  the  wreckage  of  strife  — 
Tumulus,  tumbled  tower, 
Each  clod  and  each  stone  she  '11  make  her 
own 
With  the  grass  and  innocent  flower. 


Give  her  the  Candlemas  snow, 
Smiling  she  '11  take  the  gift. 

And  out  of  the  flake  a  snowdrop  make, 
And  a  lambkin  out  of  the  drift. 


198 


APRIL  VOICES 

THE  birches  of  your  London  square 
"  Have  leafed  into  an  emerald  haze  "  ? 
Then  come  —  you  promised ;  come  and  share 

The  fuller  spring  of  our  last  April  days. 
The  ash,  who  wastes  whole  golden  weeks  in 

doubt, 
The  very  ash  is  long  since  out ; 
The    apple-boughs    are    muffled  —  do    but 

think  !  — 
With  crowded  bloom  of  maid's  blush,  white 
and  pink ; 
The  whins  are  all  ablaze  ! 


199 


W.  V. 

Picture  the  pigeons  tumbling  in  bright  air  ! 
Fancy    the    jet-eyed    squirrel    on    the 
bough  ! 
Leave    the    poor   birches   in   your    London 
square ; 
The  spring  and  we  await  you  here,  and 
now. 


Beneath  our  old  world    thatch   your   puise 
shall  beat 
To  the  large-leisured  rhythm  of  wood- 
land ease ; 
No    feverish   hurry   haunts    our    otiose 
trees ; 
Your  slumber  shall  be  sweet. 


The  little  brown  bird's  nest, 

The  four  blue  eggs  beneath  the  patient 

breast. 
The  lambkin's  baby  face, 
The  joy  of  liquid  air 
And  azure  space  — 
Are  these  not  better  than  your  dingy 

square, 

200 


April   Voices 

Your  mazes  of  inhospitable  stone, 
Your  crowds  who  cannot  call  their  souls  their 
own, 
Your  Dance  of  Life-in-death  ? 
Come  to  the  fields,  where  Toil  draws  whole- 
some breath, 
And   Indigence  still  keeps   her  apron 
white. 


Enough  that  you  arrive  too  late  to  hear 

The  migrants  in  the  night ! 
When  wild  March  winds  have  dropt,  and  all 
is  still, 
A   spirit-touch    unseals    the    dreaming 
eyes; 
One  starts,  and,  leaning  from  the  window- 
sill. 
Catches  the    liquid   notes,  heard   fine   and 
clear 
In  hushed  dark  skies. 

How  pleasant  had  it  been  to  watch  with  you. 
Day  after  day, 

The    fairy   flowering   of  the    hawthorn 
spray  ! 

20I 


W.  V. 

Each  thorn  upon  the  stem 
Protects    one    rose-tipped,    green-and- 
golden  gem ; 
A  bud,  a  thorn  !  —  't  is  thus  the  whole  tree 

through. 
No,  —  where  in  tender  shoots  the  branches 
end 
There  is  no  spear  ! 

But  bud  and  bud  and  bud  are  crowded 
here ; 

'T  is  Nature's  cue 
To  lavish  most  what  least  she  can  defend. 


Come  to  the  woods  and  see 
How  in  the  warm  wet  sunny  mist  of  mom 
Green   leaves,    like    thoughts    in    dreamful 
hours,  are  born, 
And  in  the  mist  birds  pipe  on  every  tree. 
Come,  and  the  mossy  boulder  on  the  hill 
Shall  teach  what  beauty  springs   of  sitting 

still. 
The  world's  work !     Is  the  life   not    more 

than  meat? 
And  is  this  shrill  immitigable  strife, 
This  agony  of  existence,  Ufe  ? 

202 


April  Voices 

The   good   earth  calls  with  voices  strangely 

sweet ; 
Come  to  your  mother  earth  —  th*  old  English 

earth, 
The  ruddy  mother  of  a  mighty  race  — 
Dear  ruddy  earth,  with  early  wheat 
Pale  green  on  plough  ridge  and  with  kindly 

grass 
New  sprung  in  fields  that  take  no  care  ! 

Come    to    the    friends   who    love    your 

eager  face ; 
Come    share   our   rustic    peace,    our    frugal 

mirth ; 
Come,  and  restrict  for  once  your  happy  Muse 
To  the  four  hundred  words  we  yokels  use 
For  life  and  love  and  death  —  why  all  the 

lore 
Of  ancient  Egypt  hardly  needed  more  ! 
Will  London  miss  her  poet  ?     There,  alas  ! 
No  man  is  missed.     Come  make  our 

roof  your  own, 
And   leave   the    birches    dreaming   in   your 

square 
Of  forests  far  beyond  the  maze  of  stone. 


20' 


GREEN  SKY 

GREY  on  the  linden  leaves ; 
Green  in  the  west ; 
Under  our  gloaming  eaves 

Swifts  in  the  nest ; 
Over  the  mother  a  human  roof; 
Over  the  fledglings  a  breast. 


204 


SUB    UMBRA    CRUCIS 


205 


THE   SHEPHERD   BEAUTIFUL 

OFT  as  I  muse  on  Rome  —  and  at  her 
name 
Out   of  the  darkness,  flushed  with  blood 
and  gold, 
Smoulders  and  flashes    on  her    seven- 
fold height 
The  imperial,  murderous,  harlot  Rome  of 
old, 
Rome  of  the  lions,  Rome  of  the  awful 
light 
Where  "  living  torches  "  flame  — 
I  thread  in  thought  the  Catacombs'  blind  maze, 
Marvelling   how   men    could    then   draw 

happy  breath, 
And  cheer  these  sunless  labyrinths  of  death 
With  one  sweet  dream  of  Christ  told  many 
ways. 

207 


W.  V. 

The    Shepherd    Beautiful!      O    good    and 
sweet, 
O  Shepherd  ever  lovely,  ever  young, 
Was  it  because  they  gathered  at  Thy  feet, 
Because    upon    Thy    pastoral    pipe    they 
hung. 
That  they  were  happy  in  those  evil  days, 
That  these  grim  crypts  were  arched  with 
heavenly  blue, 
And  spaced  in  verdurous  vistas  lit  with 
streams  ? 

Ah,  let  me  count  the  ways, 
Fair  Shepherd  of  the  world,  in  which  they 
drew 
Thee    in   that    most   divine    of  human 
dreams. 


They  limned  Thee  standing  near  the  wattled 
shed, 
The  strayed  sheep  on  Thy  shoulders,  and 
the  flock 
Bleating  fond  welcome.     Seasons  of  the 
year  — 
Spring  gathering  roses  swung  athwart  the 
rock, 

208 


The   Shepherd   Beautiful 

Summer  and  Autumn,  one  with  golden 
ear, 
And  one  with  apple  red, 
And  shrivel' d  Winter  burning  in  a  heap 
Dead  leaves  —  they  pictured  round 

Thee  ;  for  they  said, 
"  All  the  year  round  "  —  and  joyous  tears 
were  shed  — 
"  All   the    year   round.    Thou,    Shepherd, 
lov'st  Thy  sheep." 


Sometimes  they  showed  Thee  piping  in  the 
shade 
Music  so  sweet   each  mouth  was   raised 
from  grass 
And  ceased  to  hunger.     In  some  dewy  glade 
Where  the    cool  waters  ran   as   clear   as 
glass. 
To  this  or  that  one  Thou  would'st  seem  to 
say, 
"  Thou  'st  made  me  glad,  be  happy  thou 
in  turn  !  " 
And    sometimes   Thou  would'st  sit   in 
weariness  — 

My  Shepherd  !  "  qu(zrens  me 
14  209 


K 


W.  V. 

Sedisti  lassus  "  —  while   Thy  dog    would 
yearn, 
Eyes   fixed    on   Thee,    aware    of    Thy 
distress. 


So  limned  they  Christ  3    and  bold,  yet  not 
too  bold, 
Smiled  at  the  tyrant's  torch,  the  lion's  cry ; 
So    nursed    the    child-like    heart,    the 
angelic  mind, 
Goodwill  to  live,  and  fortitude  to  die, 
And   love  for  men,   and    hope    for   all 
mankind. 
One  Shepherd  and  one  fold  ! 
Such  was   their   craving;    none    should   be 
forbid ; 
All  —  all  were  Christ's  !     And  so  they  drew 

once  more 
The  Shepherd  Beautiful.    But  now  He  bore 
No  lamb  upon  His  shoulders  —  just  a  kid. 


210 


THE   MOSS 

WHEN  black  despair  beats  down  my 
wings, 
And  heavenly  visions  fade  away  — 
Lord,  let  me  bend  to  common  things, 
The  tasks  of  every  day ; 


As,  when  th'  aurora  is  denied 

And  blinding  blizzards  round  him  beat. 
The  Samoyad  stoops,  and  takes  for  guide 

The  moss  beneath  his  feet. 


211 


A   CAROL 

THIS  gospel  sang  the  angels  bright : 
Lord  Jhesu  shall  be  born  this  night ; 
Born  not  in  house  nor  yet  in  hall, 
Wrapped  not  in  purple  nor  iti  pall, 
Rocked  not  in  silver,  neither  gold ; 
This  word  the  angels  sang  of  old  ; 
Nor  christened  with  white  ivitie  ?ior  red ; 
This  word  of  old  the  angels  said 
Of  Him  which  holdeth  in  His  hand 
The  strong  sea  and  green  land. 


212 


A  Carol 

This  thrice  and  four  times  happy  night - 
These  tidings  sang  the  angels  bright  — 
Forlorn,  betwixen  ear  and  horn, 
A  babe  shall  Jhesu  Lord  be  born, 
A  weeping  babe  in  all  the  cold ;  — 
This  word  the  angels  sang  of  old  — 
And  wisps  of  hay  shall  be  his  bed; 
This  word  of  old  the  angels  said 
Of  Him  which  keepeth  in  His  hand 
The  strong  sea  and  green  land. 


O  babe  and  Lord,  Thou  Jhesu  bright, — 
Let  all  and  some  now  sing  this  night  — 
Betwixt  our  sorrow  and  our  sin. 
Be  thou  new-born  our  hearts  within  ; 
New-born,  dear  babe  and  little  King, 
So  letten  some  and  all  men  sing  — 
To  wipe  for  us  our  tears  away  ! 
This  night  so  letten  all  men  say 
Of  Him  which  spake,  and  lo  !  they  be  — 
The  green  land  and  strong  sea. 


213 


WHEN   SNOW    LIES   DEEP 

TT  THEN  frost   has   burned   the    hedges 
VV       black, 

And  children  cannot  sleep  for  cold ; 
When  snow  lies  deep  on  the  withered  leaves, 
And  roofs  are  white  from  ridge  to  eaves ; 
When  bread  is  dear,  and  work  is  slack, 

Take  pity  on  the  poor  and  old  ! 


The  faggot  and  the  loaf  of  bread 

You  could  not  miss  would  be  their  store. 

Upon  how  little  the  old  can  live  ! 

Give  like  the  poor  —  who  freely  give. 

Remember,  when  the  fire  burns  red 
The  wolf  leaves  sniffing  at  the  door. 
214 


When  Snow  Lies  Deep 

And  you  whose  lives  are  left  forlorn, 

Whose  sons,  whose  hopes,  whose  fires  have 
died. 
Oh,  you  poor  pitiful  people  old. 
Remember  this  and  be  consoled  — 
That  Christ  the  Comforter  was  born, 
And  still  is  born,  in  wintertide. 


215 


"TREES   OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS" 

CHAINED  to  the  dungeon-wall  she  slept. 
Rome,  moonlit,  revelled  overhead. 
She  heard  not.     She  had  prayed  and  wept, 
Haggard  with  anguish,  wild  with  dread. 


She  was  too  fair,  too  young  to  die  ; 

Life  was  too  sweet,  and  home  too  dear ! 
God  touch'd  her  with  His  sleep  :  a  sigh  — 

And  she  had  ceased  to  weep  or  fear  ! 


She  slept,  and,  sleeping,  seemed  awake 
A  fair  Child  held  her  virgin  hand ; 

They  walk'd  by  an  enchanted  lake ; 
They  walk'd  in  a  celestial  land. 
216 


"  Trees  of  Righteousness  " 

One  thing  she  saw,  and  one  she  heard. 
There  were  a  thousand  red-rose  trees  ; 

Each  rose-red  leaf  sang  like  a  bird, 

"  What   trees,    dear    Child,"    she    asked, 
"are  these?" 


"  These,"  said  the  Child,  "  are  called  Love's 
Bower ; 
They  fade  not ;  constantly  they  sing ; 
Each  flower  appears  more  fire  than  flower. 
Now,    see    the    roots    from    which    they 
spring  !  " 


She  looked  ;  she  saw,  far  down  the  night, 
The  earth,  the  city  whence  she  came. 

And  Nero's  gardens  red  with  light  — 
The  light  of  martyrs  wrapped  in  flame. 


She  woke  with  Heaven  still  in  her  eyes. 

Rome,  moonlit,  revelled  overhead. 
She  feared  no  more  the  lions'  cries ; 

Flames  were  but  flowers,  and  death  was 
dead  ! 

217 


I 


THE   COMRADES 

N  solitary  rooms,  when  dusk  is  falling, 
I  hear  from  fields  beyond  the  haunted 

mountains. 
Beyond  the  unrepenetrable  forests,  — 
I  hear  the  voices  of  my  comrades  calling, 
"  Home  !  home  !  home  !  " 


Strange    ghostly    voices,    when    the  dusk   is 
falling. 
Come  from  the    ancient  years ;    and  I 

remember 
The  schoolboy   shout,  from   plain  and 
wood  and  river. 
The  signal-cry  of  scattered  comrades,  calling, 
"  Home  !  home  !  home  !  " 
218 


The   Comrades 

And  home  we  wended  when  the  dusk  was 
falling ; 
The  pledged  companions,  talking,  laugh- 
ing, singing ; 
Home  through  the  grey  French  country, 
no  one  missing. 
And  now  I  hear  the  old-time  voices  calling, 
"  Home  !  home  !  home  !  " 


I  pause  and  listen  while  the  dusk  is  falling ; 
My   heart    leaps  back  through   all  the 

long  estrangement 
Of  changing  faith,  lost  hopes,  paths  dis- 
enchanted ; 
And  tears  drop  as  I  hear  the  voices  calling, 
"  Home  !  home  !  home  !  " 


I  hear  you  while  the  dolorous  dusk  is  falling ; 
I  sigh  your  names  —  the   living  —  the 

departed ! 
O  vanished    comrades,  is  it  yours  the 
poignant 
Pathetic  note  among  the  voices  calling, 
"  Home,  home,  home  "? 

219 


W.  V. 

Call,  and  still  call  me,  for  the  dusk  is  falling. 
Call  for  I  fain,  I  fain  would  come,  but 

cannot. 
Call,  as  the    shepherd    calls   upon   the 
moorland. 
Though  mute,  with  beating  heart  I  hear  your 
calling, 

"  Home  !  home  !  home  !  " 


2ZO 


*'  CRYING   ABBA,  FATHER  " 

ABBA,  in  Thine  eternal  years 
Bethink  Thee  of  our  fleeting  day ; 
We  are  but  clay ; 
Bear  with  our  foolish  joys,  our  foolish  tears, 
And   all  the   wilfulness  with    which  we 
pray ! 


I  have  a  little  maid  who,  when  she  leaves 
Her  father  and  her  father's  threshold,  grieves. 
But  being  gone,  and  life  all  holiday, 
Forgets  my  love  and  me  straightway ; 
Yet,  when  I  write. 
Kisses  my  letters,  dancing  with  delight, 

221 


W.  V. 

Cries  "  Dearest  father  !  "  and  in  all  her  glee 
For  one  brief  live-long  hour  remembers  me. 
Shall  I  in  anger  punish  or  reprove  ? 
Nay,  this  is  natural ;  she  cannot  guess 
How  one  forgotten  feels  forgetfulness ; 
And  I  am  glad  thinking  of  her  glad  face, 
And  send  her  little  tokens  of  my  love. 

And  Thou  —  wouldst  Thou  be  wroth  in  such 
a  case? 


And  crying  Abba,  I  am  fain 

To  think  no  human  father's  heart 
Can  be  so  tender  as  Thou  art, 

So  quick  to  feel  our  love,  to  feel  our 
pain. 


When  she  is  froward,  querulous  or  wild, 
Thou  knowest,  Abba,  how  in  each  offence 
I  stint  not  patience  lest  I  wrong  the  child. 
Mistaking  for  revolt  defect  of  sense. 
For  wilfulness  mere  spriteliness  of  mind  ; 
Thou  know'st  how  often,  seeing,  I  am  blind ; 
How  when  I  turn  her  face  against  the  wall 

222 


"  Crying  Abba,  Father  " 

And  leave  her  in  disgrace, 
And  will  not  look  at  her  or  speak  at  all, 
I  long  to  speak  and  long  to  see  her  face ; 
And  how,  when  twice,  for  something  grievous 

done, 
I  could  but  smite,  and  though  I  lightly  smote, 
I  felt  my  heart  rise  strangling  in  my  throat ; 
And  when  she  wept  I  kissed  the  poor  red  hands. 

All  these  things.  Father,  a  father  understands  ; 
And  am  not  I  Thy  son? 


Abba,  in  Thine  eternal  years 

Bethink  Thee  of  our  fleeting  day ; 
From  all  the  rapture  of  our  eyes  and  ears 
How  shall  we  tear  ourselves  away? 
At  night  my  little  one  says  nay, 
With  prayers  implores,  entreats  with  tears 
For  ten  more  flying  minutes'  play ; 
How  shall  we  tear  ourselves  away? 
Yet  call,  and  I  '11  surrender 

The  flower  of  soul  and  sense. 
Life's  passion  and  its  splendour, 
In  quick  obedience. 
223 


W.  V. 

If  not  without  the  blameless  human  tears 

By  eyes  which  slowly  glaze  and  darken  shed, 

Yet  without  questionings  or  fears 

For  those  I  leave  behind  when  I  am  dead. 

Thou,  Abba,  know'st  how  dear 

My  little  child's  poor  playthings  are  to  her ; 

What  love  and  joy 

She  has  in  every  darling  doll  and  precious  toy ; 

Yet  when  she  stands  between  my  knees 

To  kiss  good-night,  she  does  not  sob  in  sorrow, 

"  Oh,  father,  do  not  break  or  injure  these  !  " 

She  knows  that  I  shall  fondly  lay  them  by 

For  happiness  to-morrow ; 

So  leaves  them  trustfully.     And  shall  not  I  ? 


Whatever  darkness  gather 
O'er  coverlet  or  pall. 

Since  Thou  art  Abba,  Father, 
Why  should  I  fear  at  all? 


Thou  'st  seen  how  closely,  Abba,  when  at  rest 
My  child's  head  nestles  to  my  breast ; 

224 


"Crying  Abba,  Father" 

And  how  my  arm  her  Uttle  form  enfolds, 
Lest  in  the  darkness  she  should  feel  alone ; 
And  how  she  holds 
My  hands,  my  hands,  my  two  hands  in  her  own  ? 


A  little  easeful  sighing 

And  restful  turning  round, 
And  I  too,  on  Thy  love  relying, 

Shall  slumber  sound. 


225 


THIS  grace  vouchsafe  me  for  the  rhymes 
I  write. 
If  any  last,  nor  perish  quick  and  quite, 

Lord,  let  them  be 
My  little  images,  to  stand  for  me 
When  I  may  stand  no  longer  in  Thy  sight : 


Like  those  old  statues  of  the  King  who  said, 
"  Carve  me  in  that  which  needs  nor  sleep  nor 
bread ; 

Let  diorite  pray, 
A  King  of  stone,  for  this  poor  King  of  clay 
Who  wearies  often  and  must  soon  be  dead  !  " 


226 


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